Hi all, I am planning to open a Brovia 2008 Ca Mia. Any advice on how long to let it breathe in advance? My understanding is to slow ox instead of decant
I recall in Montalcino that Le Chiuse said for 10+ year old reservas they like to pull the cork, let out two fingers worth of wine, replace the cork and then let breathe 24 hours. Which allows for gentle breathing over time with some oxygen. I wasn’t sure if should do something similar here, understanding that Brunello and Barolo are not the same
I’m not a believer in slow oxing younger barolos and for me, 2008 is on the younger side. I just don’t think it does much for the wine. I would probably just decant for sediment. Slow ox works great on my older barolos from the 50s through the 80s.
You will get posts saying to not give any air, to decant, or to slow-o. I found 2008 Vajra BdV to improve with air, so I would decant or slow-o. My preferred method of slow o is to pour out some wine, pour it back and re-cork and leave in the wine fridge.. 12-24 hours… and I find wines still improve in the glass (and faster than just a straight pop and pour). I have found that pouring out more than I intended/and pouring back will introduce too much oxygen (e.g., pouring out an entire glass).
Given you may be decanting a 2008 for sediment, then perhaps a quick double decant in AM, recork and keep in wine fridge till evening.
I believe the key with slow ox is sampling. I believe you cause quite a bit of change to how it aerates by pouring a small amount.
Sampling is also where I start taking my educated guesses on how much air it will need. Tonight my wife and I are bringing 2 Taurasi to dinner. I will open them in the next 10 minutes, assess, probably decant for sediment, and put them back in the bottle. Quite possibly with the corks back in, and left at cellar temp until I am ready to hope on the train, but that will be determined upon sampling.
Always be prepared to be wrong, and like @Sarah_Kirschbaum said, you can always give more air, but if you are wrong the other way, you are sol. In extreme cases, if I don’t think it is showing as expected, and may need more air, I can decant last minute.
Wine is also much more durable than people give it credit to be.
@Matt_England, @Bweiss, and I had some some '08 Barolo and Barbaresco last month and the consensus was they needed/improved from more air. Barolo was a pop and pour and the Barbaresco was double-decanted about 2-3 hours in advance.
Yea I brought 2 '08 Elio Grasso’s to dinners recently. Both times double decanted just to remove sediment two hours beforehand. In both cases it could have used more air but to Sarah’s point you can always give it more air. The '08 PdB Ovello was a PnP and very tight at the start but opened up real nicely over a couple hours so it could have used the same treatment. I have just one '08 remaining and will give it a longer double decant next time.
FWIW, this advice gives a lot more oxygen than any other.
When you decant, you introduce a lot oxygen in the pouring phase - oxygen diffusion through the still surface is going to be slow, even if the decanter base was very wide. Double-decanting does the pouring phase (ie. active introduction of oxygen) twice.
When you pour yourself a small glass and leave the bottle to slow-ox, the aeration comes mainly from you moving the wine and mixing the surface layer when you pour - not as much when you leave the wine to stand up with a slightly wider wine-air surface area.
If one is planning on double-decanting, I strongly advise doing it after the slow-ox. After double-decanting, there is going to be now slow oxidation, just oxidation. If one is planning on double-decanting first, I advise cutting down considerably on the “slow-ox” part, because there is now a lot of dissolved oxygen in the wine.
And if the wine is 136 years old, make sure you slow ox for at least three full days because on the third day, the wine will rise again and ascend to splendor, and all ye who hath slow-oxed shall be rewarded with its majesty.
I’ve found that a slow o from night prior, uncorked, leads to gentler - and more development - than a quick double decant & recork (where the latter wines still develop in the glass upon a pour)
That runs counter to all my experience, physics and what I know about wine, but ok.
I just don’t see how you can introduce much if any oxygen to wine just by slow-oxing it. Double-decanting introduces oxygen to all the wine and mixes it thoroughly in the bottle.
Yes, Alan Rath, a chemist, explained here several years ago how, even in a decanter, virtually no oxygen penetrates the surface once the wine is poured and sits there still. It’s the pouring that introduces oxygen. And the surface area if you pull the cork and pour an ounce or two is extremely small.
I think the notion that there was some value in merely pulling the cork ahead, and doing nothing more, stems from the idea that some volatile off aromas might blow off. But I don’t know if that’s true. And I don’t think anyone who thought about it would think this would make a wine more accessible.
Hard to stop an echo chamber, and I will not try from here: we are defining slow-o differently, where I define slow-o as pouring out some of the wine and possibly back in, introducing movement and oxygen.
