Decanting your wine, especially red, is a straightforward yet crucial step in enhancing your wine experience. Decanting offers three key benefits: it allows you to separate any sediments from the wine, it’s a simple process that doesn’t necessarily require a decanter, and it enhances the taste of the wine!

Decanting wine is a simple process that requires only:

• A 75cl jug
• A funnel
• Your wine

If you have stood the wine beforehand, that would be great, as that will reduce the sediments that fall to the bottom of the bottle. But don’t worry if you haven’t, as you can get a coffee filter or some muslin if you still need to do that.

The Decanting Process

1. Take the cork out or unscrew the bottle.
2. Pour the wine into the jug very carefully, in a well-lit area so you can see through the bottle as you do so.
3. If any sediments start forming at the bottom, as you pour the liquid at the end, you might see a trail or hard sediment formed with tartrate crystals at the bottom. Stop the pour before that goes in, or if you have a muslin or a coffee filter, pour it through that.
4. Rinse the bottom to remove any sediment, and then use your funnel to pour the liquid back into the bottle.

Tasting the Difference

The whole process of pouring the wine back into the bottle is more than removing the sediment. The second benefit is that you get air into the wine. Doing this releases the flavours, allowing the wine to breathe. So, pouring the decanted wine back into the bottle and making as many bubbles as possible is great because it just realises that.

I always like to taste the wine when I first pour it and then try it later when it has had time to breathe. You can tell the vast difference in the wine. Depending on age, some will vary more than others, but you can go right with decanting. If it has no beneficial effect, you have lost nothing, but decanting will improve the wine and remove the unwanted sediment.

Decanting Different Types of Wine

A common question people ask me is, “Can I not just use a regular decanter?” Of course, the answer is yes; by all means, use it, but it isn’t necessary to use a decanter. It has a large surface area, allowing air to contact the wine. If people remove the cork from the bottle, the only contact is with the small inch diameter of air, which is not very effective, and this air contact is the most crucial part. This is why aerating is essential, as it quickly gets all the liquid in contact with the air, allowing it to breathe.

If you have an older wine, the amount of decanting, or contact with the time of decanting to drinking the wine, is a lot less. When I’m talking about old wine, I mean 10-30 years old; depending on the wine, the older the wine, the less time it will need to come around if it’s a very young wine, like a Barolo or a First Growth Claret, the more time you give it to breathe, the better.

Tips for Optimal Decanting

• For young wines, I decant it in the morning and drink it that evening. If the wine is really young, I’ll do it the evening before.
• The older the wine, the less time it needs to stand or be decanted before drinking. You can usually tell this from the colour of the wine; if it’s starting to go brick red and it’s ten years old, it won’t need too long.
• If you have a decanter you like to use, that’s great; I only like to put it back into the bottle simply because if I’ve got a special wine, I want people to see what it is. Of course, there is no reason why you can’t put the empty bottle beside the decanter so people can see, so your guests can have a look and recognise what’s going on.

So that’s effectively decanting; it’s a simple yet necessary operation, and the sooner you start, the sooner you will see the benefits in your wine.

Cheers, Jonathan Simpkin
Woodhouse Wines