Should I Or Should I Not Decant My Wine

Decanting is the process of pouring wine from a bottle into a vessel with a large surface area exposed to the air.

For wines that have sediment, decanting is a must.

Some may have different views about decanting young reductive style wines for aeration, however every wine, even sparkling wine at times, benefits from getting more oxygen into it.

Temperature plays an important role in wine enjoyment. Many end up drinking either too warm red wines or too cold white wines. Wines can be rapidly decanted to achieve proper drinking temperature or remove unpleasant volatile aromas like struck match or sulphur-like odours.

Moreover, decanters typically look good on a dinner table and wine should be enjoyed to ultimate satisfaction of senses; aesthetics is good enough a reason to decant wine.

If a decanter cannot be found, simply swirling the wine in a glass will aerate the wine and may have the desired effect in many cases. But opening a bottle and letting it breath does nothing as only a small bit of wine at the top of the bottle actually comes into contact with any oxygen. Instead, simply pouring the bottle into a jug and then pouring it back into the bottle is a quick, simple, and guaranteed way to make every bottle taste even better.

A wine aerator too will oxygenate the wine as it passes through the narrow tube drawing in air based on venturi principle. More on it later.