Decanting: Tim James
To breathe or not to breathe, that is the question... Tim James CWM searches for elusive answers in the great decanting debate.
Wine lives: it burgeons, breathes, decays. That is the source of its greatest interest and pleasure, and the reason for vexing questions like whether or not to decant. What would sensuous life be for wine lovers without such trivial, vital problems? Will our much contemplated bottle of Kanonkop or Pétrus (or this week's supermarket bargain Cab) be the better or the worse for being splashed into our splashy decanter?
Of the three reasons for decanting wine, two are unassailable. Most straightforward is the visual: apologies to label designers, but wine does assume a whole new beauty when offered unadorned in a clear glass vessel, whether in an elegant item of glassblown art or a simple carafe. Even fashionably opaque reds will glow enticingly, while white wines look especially good with some golden depths.
The second reason has a practical as well as an aesthetic aspect. Careful decanting of an older wine that has thrown some sediment can leave any deposit behind at the bottom of the bottle. No flecks to disturb the purity of the wine in the glass, no bitter-tasting crystals. Old Port is the classic example (because it's concentrated, bottled early and matured lengthily), but many red wines more than, say, eight years old will have precipitated some pigmented tannins or tartrates as sediment.
Younger wines that were not fined or filtered before bottling can also show a little sediment. Jörg Pfützner, sommelier at Aubergine restaurant in Cape Town, always decants Springfield Méthode Ancienne Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, for this reason. But these are not the only young red wines that the careful sommelier treats in this way. Many, says Pfützner, will simply smell and taste better for decanting.
This is the third reason for decanting and here we enter the area of controversy, where personal taste and experience are the most useful guidelines, with certainty and predictability in short supply.
It is all a matter of air. Opening the bottle and pouring wine into another container aerates it: effectively giving it the kiss of life as well as the sentence of death, as oxidation will ultimately reduce the noblest wine to a puddle of dull staleness. Some oenologists and connoisseurs, including the eminent Émile Peynaud of Bordeaux in his The Taste of Wine, deny that there can be any resultant benefit to aroma or flavour. They insist that as soon as wine is fully exposed to air it starts to become both softened and dulled.
Even those convinced otherwise, whether or not they can scientifically justify their preference, tend to agree that decanting has an element of gambling to it - in precisely the same way as ageing a bottle for another year is to wager on its development. Depending on the wine, its age and condition, and on how long before drinking you decant it, it is certainly possible to allow a wine to stale and flatten through decanting - but arguably it is also possible to bring it to the highest pitch of its current potential.
Even assuming for the moment that decanting is generally A Good Thing, more questions unfortunately rush in. When, ideally, to decant? Immediately before drinking? An hour in advance, or six, or 24? There is certainly no general answer, and the old matter of personal preferences inevitably comes into play.
Few reported experiments are based on more than anecdotal evidence. One conducted by the British magazine Decanter some years ago confronted some of the fancier names in British winetasting with red Bordeaux wines of different qualities and ages, each example presented with different degrees of aeration. In most cases the overwhelming preference was the sample poured straight from the bottle immediately prior to tasting. Decanting shortly before serving proved the least attractive option.
Whether these results would apply to all wines is far from certain. Common wisdom holds that aeration is most useful for young, brash, toughly tannic wines: it somehow brings all that mouthpuckering power into a more acceptable relationship with sweet fruit - giving it the balance that more years in the bottle would also (and perhaps in a more complex way) bring about. This is what motivates Jörg Pfützner's enthusiasm for decanting wines "that can take it".
It is also behind the increasingly common sight of decanted wine at shows and exhibitions. Warwick is one of those producers that generally offers its young wines from decanters at such events. "They are hugely improved by giving them some air," says owner and former winemaker Norma Ratcliffe. "The fruit comes out, and the tannin is slightly subdued." Some vintages, she has learned, respond well to more vigorous aeration than others.
This observation is widely shared. Explanations are not easy, however. Is it the fruit that advances somehow, or the tannin that recedes? The second answer seems more plausible. After all, tannins do soften markedly during maturation in barrel, partly through oxidation. But this chemical reaction - polymerisation - could not take place in the brief space of time between decanting and drinking. It's more likely that oxidation and evaporation are affecting some of the many compounds in wine in such a way as to lift the relative profile of the fruit, leaving the tannin unaffected.
With mature wines too there can be no certainty. Some fragile older wines can rapidly lose their bouquet and flavour when exposed to air. Yet Hugh Johnson, who has surely savoured as many fine old wines as anyone, suggests in his Wine Companion that very old and very great wines "can add layer upon layer of bouquet and flavour hour after hour". (So next time you open a bottle of his example, Château Lafite 1803, don't feel any urgency in downing it.) The only general rule that Johnson can offer, incidentally, is that "the better the wine, taking both origin and vintage into account, the more it benefits from prolonged contact with the air".
If you tend to find old sayings useful, Pfützner has a succinct one: decant a young wine because you trust it; decant on old wine because you respect it.
The options may be many, explanations lacking and experience inconclusive, but the decanting process itself is unmysterious and need cause no anxiety. With clear youthful wines it is merely a matter of aeration - probably the more gurgling and agitated the better. Allowing the wine to "breathe", by the way, by simply removing the cork and leaving the bottle for an hour or so, is unlikely to achieve much, given the tiny wine surface thus offered to the air. If aeration is what you want and another vessel is unavailable, seal the opened bottle with thumb or cork and upend it a few times, allowing fresh air to work through it. Or rely on some serious swirling in the glass once the wine is poured.
When decanting an older or unfiltered wine off its sediment a little more care is called for. For the process to be entirely effective, the bottle should be kept still and standing upright for at least a day, to allow any sediment to settle at the bottom. Once the cork is out, remove the top of the capsule and clean the lip. Gently position the bottle over a light source (such as a candle or lamp) and pour the wine carefully into the decanter, without allowing any large bubbles of air to disturb the wine in the bottle. Watch for the sediment to reach the shoulder of the bottle. (Interestingly, this is one reason for the high-shouldered design of the "Bordeaux bottle".) Leave the last few sediment-tainted centimetres behind - and pass any precious dregs through a paper coffee filter into a separate glass.
Ultimately, only your experimentation will reveal when decanting helps or harms a wine. Fortunately, in this instance, the process of experimentation carries with it more pleasure than pain.
WHO DOES? WHO DOESN'T?
Louis Strydom, winemaker at Rust en Vrede:
"We do for a number of reasons. Firstly, because the wine disappears so quickly at wine shows - within about 15 minutes a bottle is gone - that we need to expose as much of it to air, to get it to soften, as quickly as possible.
"The second reason is that when you aerate wine in a decanter first, you can detect odours within minutes and avoid serving wine that's off! The third reason is that it looks good and it's all part of the show!"
Personal preference? "The Riedel Duck - it's beautiful and easy to pour."
Emil den Dulk, owner of De Toren:
"Our wine is made reductively so when the bottle is opened it just about gasps for air! Seriously, though, our wine needs a bit of oxygen to open it up and release the aromas and flavours. We have found that it helps to upend the bottle when decanting and let the wine have a good dose of air as it glugs out."
Personal preference? "For shows, the Riedel Duck because of its pouring ability but here at the cellar and at home, I use a Spiegelau with a bulbous bottom because it's got a nice open bowl that gives the wine lots of air."
Jeff Grier, winemaker at Villiera:
"As a rule I don't decant at shows, because it's logistically difficult for us. We like to have three or four red wines as well as whites, and if we had to decant it would be nightmarish to try and control.
"Nowadays younger wines are made in such a way that they don't necessarily need to have their tannins softened, but at home if I have an older wine, I'll decant to ensure that any sediment settles in the decanter."
Johan Malan, winemaker at Simonsig:
"In general I don't decant - but there are definitely times when it's called for, either with young wines which need softening or older wines that need to have sediment filtered off. But you have to be careful because an old wine can be great after one or two hours, but completely shot after four!
"I think you get the same result by simply pouring the wine into a good glass and aerating it by swirling."
Bruwer Raats, winemaker at Zorgvliet:
"I don't decant because I don't think it's really necessary. I tend to remove half a glass to taste and nose it and that drops the level to below the shoulder of the bottle - and exposes the wine to air. Then I leave it for three to four hours and that's enough air for the wine."
