Welcome to the home of Boutique Liquors.

Browse our vast selection of  premium liquors, spirits, and fine wines from around the world delivered to your home.

How to Decant Wine

What is all this decanting about? Why do some bottles of wine get decanted, and others don't? How long should you decant for, and how does that vary by wine?

Decanting is all about removing sediment from a wine, and allowing the wine to breathe. These are things that older, red wines do - young wines and white wines do not usually have to be decanted.

First, the sediment. Wines have all sorts of organic things in them - yeast, grape skins, and so on. The wine naturally has very small particles of these things that, over the years that wine age, settle out of the wine. That's why with older red wines, which have much more skin contact, you get more sediment.

The trick is to pour the wine slowly into the decanter, keeping the same side down that was down during the aging process. You don't want to mix all that sediment in now! Be sure not to let the sediment end up in the decanting glass. Some people, with a bottle full of sediment (i.e. an old port), pour "over a candle". The candle just helps you see the sediment in the bottle neck better as it begins to slide towards the opening.

OK, now you have a wine without sediment in it. Why would you let it sit there? Isn't wine and air a bad combination? Well, yes and no. Yes, during the years of aging you don't want air getting to the wine. However, now that you're about to drink it, air getting across a good surface area of a wine can bring out its aromas.

Remember that your tongue can only taste four types of tastes - all of the other sensations you get from wine come from your nose. You want that wine to be giving off aromas! If it's not releasing flavors into the air, it's going to taste like strange water. You can usually let the wine sit in the decanter for 1/2 to 1 hour before you drink it. You'll see how its flavor changes over the evening as you drink.

There is of course a point at which the air causes more damage than good. If you let the wine sit out for say 8 hours, it warm up to your ambient room temperature which in modern times is 70F or more, which is awful for wine flavor. When the French talked of Room Temperature in the 1800s, they meant in the 50s! Also, wine + air = vinegar. If you let it sit there for over 8 hours, the vinegar flavors are going to overpower any nice flavors the wine had, as it goes through this conversion. If you don't finish the wine over the course of your meal or discussion, seal the rest up and put it into the fridge.

This is true for vintage ports as well. While the port is fortified, it is still a delicate wine and not meant for a lot of air contact. You really can taste the flavor difference in a port that's been left open for too long.

Note that just taking a cork out of a bottle does very little as far as "breathing". The tiny amount of surface area touching the air in the bottle neck will cause no real change in the wine over even a few hours. You want a decanter that creates a lot of surface air, for the wine to interact with that air. If you look at the above photo of a decanter, you can see how the natural shape of the decanter causes the wine to stretch out and get a lot of surface contact.

From a Visitor:
"When you Decant Wine, does it matter whether the decanter is on its side or standing straight up?"

I'm not sure how you could possibly put any decanter on its side. Decanters are open topped pitchers because the whole purpose is to let a lot of air contact the wine, to help it breathe and open up. If you put it on its side, all the wine would pour out!

The primary reason you keep wine bottles on their side during storage is so the cork stays wet - so it doesn't dry out and let in air. You're doing the opposite here. You are trying to expose as much air as you can to the wine, during the hour or two you are decanting it. So this has nothing to do with long term storage or wet corks. It solely has to do with wine sitting in a decanter, interacting with the air. The decanter is meant to do that in its normal position.

Wine Guide: Serving Wine

There's really no mystery to serving wine as most of us can manage to get the wine out of the bottle and into our glass without too much trouble, but here are a couple of things that may help the wine show its best:

Temperature: In general, white wines should be served chilled and red wine at room temperature. For whites, a couple of hours in the fridge will do just fine. If you're pushed for time, then put the bottle in an ice bucket filled half with ice and half with cold water. This will bring the wine down to the desired temperature in about twenty minutes. For most reds, room temperature is ideal, unless the room is a balmy 80°F, of course. We've all had warm red wine served to us in restaurants and, frankly, it does the wine no favors. Light, fruity reds, like Beaujolais, are best served a little cool, especially on a warm summer day. Champagne, dessert wine, most sherry and rosé should be treated as white. Red port should be served at room temperature but tawny port can be chilled.

Decanting: This is the process of pouring off any sediment that has been deposited in the bottle over time to create 'clean wine'. It is frequently done with vintage port or older red wines that have spent many years in a bottle. The vast majority of wines do not need to be decanted at all, but if you do need to do it, simply pour the wine slowly into a glass decanter or jug keeping an eye on the neck of the bottle. When you see sediment in the neck, it's time to stop. Decanting can also help the wine "breathe".

Breathing: If a wine has spent many years locked up in a bottle, away from the air, it will benefit from a little breathing time. This can take place in the glass or in a decanter and twenty to thirty minutes should suffice. Even young wines can benefit from a little breathing time as it allows the wine to open up and really show what it's made of. You can test this by tasting a wine immediately after opening it and then see how your second glass tastes some twenty minutes later. There's often quite a difference. That's also why, if you're opening several reds, open them all at once. You give your next bottle a chance to breathe, while you are enjoying the current one. On the other hand, whites generally don't need to be opened ahead of time, as the goal is usually to retain their freshness.

Glassware: The best glasses for appreciating wine are made of plain, thin, clear glass. Heavy, cut glass makes it difficult to see the wine properly. The glass should have a wide bowl tapering to a narrow opening; a tulip shape, in other words. This allows room for the wine to be swirled in the glass while concentrating the aromas at the rim. Champagne should be served in tall flutes or tall, thin tulip-shaped glasses. Today there are many specialty glasses designed to be used with different grape varieties. While these may, indeed, enhance the attributes of the different wines, they really aren't necessary. A good, all purpose glass like Riedel's "Ouverture" series red and white wine glass, is a simple, elegant solution for about $7/glass.

Fill level: The glass should never be filled more than about half full. This allows room for swirling the wine around in the glass to release its aromas without splashing it all over the table. A good way to achieve this is to leave the glass on the table, hold the stem at the base and make small, quick circles with the base. Try it!

Always taste the wine yourself before serving it to guests in case it's faulty (see "faults" below).

If you don't finish the bottle, most wines will keep quite happily for a couple of days with the cork stuck back in the bottle, keeping the air out. You can even buy vacuum pumps in wine shops to remove the air altogether, which will buy you another day or two. Whites are better off in the fridge and reds left out at room temperature. It's impossible to say exactly how long a wine will keep once open because each wine is different, but in general the higher quality the wine, the longer it will keep.