Wine Decanter For Maximum Enjoyment of Wine Tasting

The important fact that most average wine drinkers overlook is decanting their red wine before drinking it! Decanting is important for several reasons, the most important of which is harmonizing all the flavors of the wine. The interaction between oxygen and wine gives the wine that has been sitting in its bottle a chance to breath and release its aromas (for younger wines a carafe is used to provide more oxygen faster).

But providing air does one more thing for the wine, it allows its flavors to break-in sort of speak. I compare it to slowly cooked ragout or couscous that gets better as it sits a while, where all the flavors of the ingredients get a chance to slowly and gradually combine so that you could get the full, and not just the half flavor. That is why slowly cooked dishes like stews and ragouts always taste so much better the next day!

Although, you do not need to let the wine breath or oxidize for a day, but in some cases depending on the age of the wine, it is a good idea to let wine breath for several hours. The average breathing time however is about one to two hours for best results.

Why use a wine decanter (a word of caution, you generally do not use a decanter to oxygenate a wine, you use it to separate the wine from the settling sediments, and the older the wine, the less exposure of oxygen is needed)?

Well, number one when you use a decanter, you are supposed to take at least one minute time to pour the wine slowly in to the container ensuring that the sediments that are usually deposited on the bottom of the bottle are separated from the actual liquid and they remain in the bottle.

Number two, decanters are in general scientifically designed to provide and expose least amount of oxygen to the surface of the wine. Consequently, the consumer can enjoy the final results more effectively (for younger wines you're better off using a carafe that provides more oxygen to the wine, or leaving it in the decanter longer).

Number three, which has to do more with mindset than anything else, decanters are stylish! They give you a subtle but psychologically an in vogue feeling that whether you like to admit it or not, it makes you feel good and it makes your wine tasting experience more enjoyable!.