How long should wine breathe?
GDinon
difference between white or red? Appreciate the help!
Greg
Winefndrs
bottle. Most wine opens up better in the glass, and it only takes a very few
minutes. If when you taste the wine you really think it needs aeration, then
you should decant it. Just leaving it sitting in an open bottle isn't going to
do much of anything. One hint -- don't serve your whites too cold; it kills
the flavor.
Susan Roland
Wine Finders
John D. Seelbinder
There are two reasons to decant a wine - to remove sediment, and to
aerate the wine. *Usually* (always there are exceptions!) older wines
require decanting to remove sediment. Younger wines, especially tannic,
potent reds, benefit from decanting to aerate the wine. This works well
in the glass too, if you have the patience. I will frequently sip a
wine, without adding more to the glass, for a couple of hours. In young
red Cabernets, Zins, Shiraz and the like, the wine will evolve in the
glass as both temperature and air affect the wine. It can be a most
pleasurable experience.
Susan is correct - there is so little exposure to air in the neck of a
bottle that simply pulling the cork will have little or no effect.
Decant the wine if you think it needs aeration. For details on
decanting, see the wine FAQ at
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/wine-faq/part1/faq.html
(see quote from FAQ below)
And, once again, Susan is right on about serving a white wine too cold.
It should be cool - more so than a red - about 45F-55F depending on the
time of year - warmer in summer. Never serve at refrigerator
temperatures! There will be little flavor or aroma/bouquet at that cold
a temperature. (see quote from FAQ at bottom)
(Shamelessly copied from the win FAQ):
_Decanting_
This is where you pour the wine out of the bottle into another container
(a "decanter"). Properly decanting a bottle lets you get rid of
sediment.
Use a candle behind the neck of the bottle to see when sediment gets to
the neck (I'm repeating the standard line here---Assuming you don't get
it
close enough to heat up the wine, is there some reason you can't use a
light bulb?). Stop pouring as soon as you see the sediment. Not all
wines
have sediment, but old vintage Port does and is always decanted for this
reason. Some people will decant through cheesecloth, wire mesh placed in
a
funnel or even coffee filters.
Some wines will say on their label that they are "unfiltered." (See the
section on fining and filtering.) If you find that there is sediment in
such wine, go ahead and decant, but just because a wine is unfiltered
doesn't necessarily mean that there will be sediment.
There are other reasons to decant wine. For example, some young white
wines may be have a sulfurous quality which can be removed by spirited
decanting. Decanting also lets red wine "breathe," giving any bad but
very
volatile chemical compounds in the wine a chance to evaporate ("blow
off")
so they're not there when you serve it.
_Letting the Wine Breathe_
Some wines (for examples some Burgundies and Bordeaux) when young are
"accessible," meaning that you can detect the bouquet and flavors that
are
and will be in the wine. But then chemical reactions take place and the
wine closes up (becomes "closed"). What was there before is harder to
perceive. The wine gets, as they say, "dumb." Aging the wine causes the
wine to again open up (tannin, a bitter flavor, turns to sediment and
won't be tasted--if it isn't poured into the glass!), and is more
"complex." Since letting oxygen in the air get to wine can help to open
it
up, decanting will help this process along, though not as much as aging
it
would.
Be forewarned, however. Not all wines benefit from this airing (known as
"letting the wine breathe"), for example, fine Burgundies. Also, you can
allow a wine to breathe too much. While oxygen helps to open up the
wine,
it also oxidizes the wine, which will eventually ruin it. Finally, a
wine
that is "over the hill" isn't going to get anything from breathing,
since
it is already "gone." Experience is important here. In any event, if you
don't know, don't decant. While there are those who advocate letting
wine
breathe, most don't, or when they do, advise a relatively short period
of
time (an hour for young reds, 2 to 3 hours for older fine reds; and some
say don't decant until just before drinking).
Some people will let a wine breathe by opening up the bottle, but not
decanting it. This really isn't of much use since not much oxygen is
going
to get down that small neck.
The trick of shaking the wine so that it forms like soda pop is
certainly
an extreme example of getting oxygen into wine; but if it works....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As cool wine warms, vapors rise off the wine. Since your sense of smell
is
a very big part of what things taste like, getting those vapors into
your
nose is important. Try drinking a bottle of wine that has been heavily
refrigerated. In some ways, it will taste a lot like water, or at least
tasteless alcohol. On the other hand, if you serve a little below room
temperature, you'll get the benefit of the vaporizing effect. So one
rule
of thumb is to serve the wine 1 or 2 degrees below room temperature.
But, there _is_ a limit to the warmth. To some extent, you can use the
following hints for:
+ _Best red wines; "big" red wines:_ 59 to 61 degrees Fahrenheit, 14
to
16 degrees Centigrade.
+ _Lesser reds, rose, and "complex" white wines:_ 50 to 54 degrees
Fahrenheit, 10 to 12 degrees Centigrade.
+ _Less complex white wines:_ 46 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, 8 to 10
degrees Centigrade.
+ _Sweet white wines, Champagne:_ 43 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit, 6 to 8
degrees Centigrade.
Peter Watkins
instance... VERY old wines may only last a short time before they fade
and die. In this case, decanting may be the kiss of death.
For a very old wine, I would let it stand upright a day before opening.
All the sediment would then be at the bottom, so pour the wine
carefully to ensure it stays there.
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RonJanDev
let younger wines breathe longer.
What I do is open a bottle, taste, and then pour off the first glass. This
takes the wine in the bottle down off the neck. I do this usually when I'm
preparing dinner (say an hour before it's ready). Then, the wine really
evolves during dinner, so the entire experience is rather nice (the chef gets a
sip every now and then also).
I have never bothered to let any whites breathe. I just bring them up from the
cellar before dinner is ready (earlier if I decide the chef deserves a sip or
two while cooking). That way the Chardonnay experience starts from 55 degrees
and eventually warms up to room temperature (66 or so during these winter
months).
I'll stand my older standard wines, say 83, 85, 88 Bordeaux, etc., up a few
days before I plan to open them so the sediment can get to the bottom. Then I
go through the process outlined above.
Ron
jke...@voicenet.com
>What I do is open a bottle, taste, and then pour off the first glass.
Why not just decant the whole bottle?
>I'll stand my older standard wines, say 83, 85, 88 Bordeaux, etc., up a few
>days before I plan to open them so the sediment can get to the bottom.
What if your decision to enjoy an '83, '85 or '88 is last minute? How
would you remove the sediment? Would you decant through cheesecloth?
Jack
--------------------------------
"There are no standards of taste in wine, cigars, poetry, prose,
etc. Each man's own taste is the standard and a majority vote
cannot decide for him or in any slightest degree affect the
supremacy of his own standard." - Mark Twain, 1895
--------------------------------
Ami Abraham Silberman
RonJanDev wrote in message <19990206160832...@ng-cf1.aol.com>...
>..
>I have never bothered to let any whites breathe. I just bring them up from
the
>cellar before dinner is ready (earlier if I decide the chef deserves a sip
or
>two while cooking). That way the Chardonnay experience starts from 55
degrees
>and eventually warms up to room temperature (66 or so during these winter
>months).
>...
For me, I've found that sweeter Rieslings often benifit from decanting.
chris.a...@dinosaur.com
> For me, I've found that sweeter Rieslings often benifit from
> decanting.
In what way? Excess SO2?
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| Chris Anderson chris.a...@dinosaur.com |
| Sysadmin, dinosaur.com Niwot, Colorado |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
RonJanDev
I suppose there's some subconscious reason. I enjoy handling the bottle. I
tend to read the label, etc. Pouring from the bottle is familiar.
>What if your decision to enjoy an '83, '85 or '88 is last minute? How would
you remove the sediment? Would you decant through cheesecloth?
Those are the times I would use both a cheesecloth and a decanter. I find it
to be a rare event when I haven't planned ahead.
The more common time is when I decide to open a bottle of port.
Ron
Ami Abraham Silberman
botrytised, the honeyed sweetness
becomes a little more complex. I'm not advocating a long airing, but, if you
know you will finish the bottle, try
decanting it first.
One experiment you might try is to decant half the bottle, and then try a
glass both from the bottle and from the
decanter.
ami
chris.a...@dinosaur.com wrote in message
<990208202...@dinosaur.com>...
chris.a...@dinosaur.com
> They become slightly less acidic,
Hmmm.. that should not be possible.
> the bouquet becomes more floral,
Very likely. Some of them show a pretty closed nose for a while after opening.
I've even had good luck with a 3/4 full bottle in the fridge for a couple of
days in this regard. Amazing how it can be better after that, but it happens!
> and, if botrytised, the honeyed sweetness becomes a little more complex.
Like the fruit, the other elements of the nose sometimes disappear a bit until
the wine has been out "in the real world" for a bit.
Had an interesting experience with an '89 Spatlese this last week. This
particular wine was fine a year ago, but had apparantly gone over the hill and
down the tubes in the last year. Just on a lark, the remaining wine was parked
in the fridge for a couple of days, and sure enough, it had regained some of
its former charm just for the extra time with some air contact.
Had a '92 Selbach Spatlese last year that tried to pull the same trick on me,
but was even more amenable to just being left out in the glass for half an hour
or so, and being warmed. Thought we'd lost it, but things turned out well.
>> In what way? Excess SO2?
SO2, on the other hand, is something I've faced now and again in wines that
could use some more time in the bottle; but once opened, can often be dealt
with by a bit of time in the open. Evidently, free sulphur is often bound over
time in the bottle, and patience takes care of it. But when opened before this
can happen, I've heard about the addition of pennies and a couple of other
things, but just being in a glass for a bit (and swirled lovingly, of course)
seems to do wonders.
Mark Taylor
Ami Abraham Silberman wrote in message ...