It is with some caution that I post this thread, knowing that there are staunch advocates of prolonged decanting. With that disclaimer…when reading people’s TNs (whether on this site, eBob or CT), I sometimes run across descriptions such as “decanted for 7/10/15 hours” or even overnight. At what point is decanting just excessive, and more importantly, destructive? Decanting a 5 year old syrah for half a day (assuming uncovered decanter and not in fridge) would make me think that you may have negatively affected the tasting profile of the wine by excessive oxidation-especially when decanting a wine you are not familiar with. I dont pretend to know all there is to know about decanting, but I tend to lean on the conservative side of “how long is too long?” making a point to take a sample every hour or so if I am unsure. Similarily, if a wine really needs 10 hours to start to show itself (say an '05 Lascombe), doesnt that warrant not opening the bottle for a couple of years and opting for something that is closer to being in its drinking window, putting aside the issue of opening a bottle now to see how a wine develops down the road?
What are people’s thoughts? Maybe I am being too conservative, and if so, I would love to hear the argument for this type of decanting.
Cue Hudak and his anit-decant campaign. [ok.gif]
I’ve become less of a fan of decanting young wines. Have had so many mixed results that I’m not sure its the best thing. What I have been doing is just opening bottles very early and letting them slow-ox with better results thus far. On older wines that need air and are not close to being dead decanting seems to do the trick though in my experience.
From my perspective, decanting depends on what shape the wine is in, and I typically don’t know that until I pop the cork. If, when I taste the wine immediately after opening, it’s wound tighter than , it’s a candidate for decanting (again, leaving the particular method of decanting up to you). Once decanted, though, I can see no better alternative than simply periodically tasting the wine to see how it’s faring. Once it opens up a bit, splash decanting into a glass, coupled with some vigorous swirling ought to give a clue to what’s going to happen later.
Personally, I prefer wines more tightly wound and would rather work through some layers than to leave it for too long and come back to a flabby, raisiny wine. Interestingly, I think we have typically done just the opposite of Cris: if we decant at all, it tends to be with younger wines. We leave older juice in the bottle, reasoning that it’s a more gradual and gentle oxidation process.