Ok gents/ladies, I have been drinking/buying/ for many years. I keep seeing notes about decanting 12-24-48 hrs. Give me a break!!! What is the max you decant a wine? What wine? Did it work? I have never decanted a wine for more than 3 hrs!? Am I missing something?
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3 hours is not long enough for some wines. 24+ hours is only potentially good for young Rieslings and stuff like that thatās nowhere near ready to drink.
Any reasonably mature wine isnāt going to benefit by more than 4-5 hours, Iād say.
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Give me a specific wine that you would decant 24 hrs!
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I guess not really leave in a decanter 24 hours, but Iāve opened many 2019 Rieslings early with the intent to see how they develop over 1, 2, 3 days or more.
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Iāve had a ton of wines that were better on Day 2, 3 or ___ than they were on Day 1. Many of them were decanted on Day 1, and perhaps poured back into the bottle at the end of Day 1. That counts in my book.
Now, am I actively seeking that experience (where the wine shows its best on some day subsequent to Day 1)? No. Iād rather sit on it and let it age.
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Totally different than a 24 hr decantā¦of course development is different. I will take your answer as a confirmation of a 6-12-24hr decant is bullshit!
Ummmmm, this is not different than a 24 hr decant. The act of pouring from a bottle introduces plenty of oxygen into a wine; itās effectively decanted/ing at that point. Itās essentially the same.
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Name one bottle you would decant for 6-12-24 hrs. Decant by nature means put in a decanter. Please name one bottleā¦Name and year?
Id like to see some data on that. I understand what youre saying, but theres something in the back of my head that says a recorking a wine after pouring a glass isnt oxygenating it as much as leaving 10x the surface area exposed to air.
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yup
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āas muchā ā sure, Iāll agree with that.
But, that invites the question: at what point/level do differences stop making a meaningful difference?
I wonāt pretend to know the answer to that question, although I wonāt be surprised if there are others on this board whoāve read into it.
One could hit a nail with a hammer 3 times to drive it all the way in, or one could hit that same nail 8 times with a hammer to drive it all the way in, even though it was fully driven after 3 strikes; at some point, with some things, you have a difference without a distinction. Iām not definitively saying that about decanting (because I donāt know, nor do I particularly care), but I think itās prudent to consider this as a possible dynamic at play.
Iāve had tons of bottles that showed better on Day 2, 3 or ___, and many were not decanted on Day 1, but rather just poured from the bottle. Thatās the result of air exposure.
Not all decanters are made the same, either.
Pouring one glass will necessarily be different than pouring multiple times. There are so many factors.
We could argue little technicalities, but, in the end, given my personal experiences, Iād consider such arguments to be the proverbial grinding of gnat shit.
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Not something I personally am doing, but Iām pretty sure Macdonald recommends decanting recent vintages 12 hours if youāre going to drink them young. I have often decanted a wine at lunchtime that was going to be consumed dinner. Poured back into the bottle to take to the restaurant. 24 seems awfully long, but I can see 6 to 8 or even 12 hours for young, highly structured wines. Ironically Iām not a person who finds that (red) wines typically benefit from two or three days of being open either. There are exceptions but I am somewhat sensitive to oxidation in red wines. That makes it something of a guessing game, depending on the wine.
I definitely think of a long decant as being for something thatās probably too young but I want to drink it anyway.
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The most I have ever decanted a bottle was 6 hours, and it was worth it.
I have heard of people decanting vintage port for much longer than that.
I tend to do several hour decants on some wines that I have learned needed it, but never 12-24-48. You keep seeing these notes, where? If here why don;t you ask the poster?
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Great. Has it been a year since this flammable thread has flourished again?
Ports and Madeiras are decanted that long by some devotees.
Brian is essentially right. Iāve yet to see evidence of a marked difference in wine evolution when merely exposed to air versus slamming it against air in a ādecanterā. Thatās why I think the term ādouble decantingā is misleading and likely wrong.
That said there is also the issue of maturity. For instance a just released great growth Bordeaux from a good vintage is likely to be able to stand a day or more of being opened without a major change in quality. Yet something like a 20 year old California Pinot might not taste so great after a decant and being open all night.
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Purely as an experiment, back in the early aughts I decanted a 1996 S&B Borgogno Cannubi and tasted an ounce several times a day knowing full well that the wine was not āready.ā I found that it was best on day two (~24 hours) and began to fade on day three. But this is not something I would ever do as a normal practice.
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Decanting means moving from one container to another. If Iām planning on an āovernightā decant, I usually pour it into the decanter for 30+ mins, then put it back in the bottle and cork it ā but thatās mostly for convenience and not wanting a fruit fly to end up in the wine or something. Iād be fine to leave it in the decanter too if I had a walk-in cellar with a counter, or something.
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Ridge Monte Bello younger than 10 years. Recently, I forgot I had a 3 oz bottle of 2019 Monte Bello that had been poured 2 weeks prior. It needed that much time to really show its stuff!
You know my position: once you splash the wine around, whether thatās into a decanter, a glass, a decanter and back into bottle, and it just sits there, not much is happening, except what has already happened during that splashing around. If you swirl the decanter every now and then (just like swirling your glass), that will continue to āactā on the wine.
I almost never just decant and leave it in the decanter (probably because the majority of the time Iām taking the bottle somewhere for tasting or dinner). Pretty much always double decant. That does expose the wine to air twice, so should be a bit better than just pouring once into a decanter.
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Iāve done a bottle of Macdonald 24hrs recently, it needed it
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