The Auswine Forum

Is there a "rule of thumb" that one can use in deciding how long to allow a wine to breath before consuming?

Some say to decant for one hour, others 4 hours and/or longer?

I am opening the following wines over the next week and would appreciate any comments about the length of time that each one of these wines should be left to breath before serving.

1998 Cullen
1998 707
1998 Jacaranda

1989 Magnum - Stonewell

Thanks..

The most important thing is not to open the wines as the little air that gets in does virtually nothing. You must decant the wine into a large decanter so there is a lot of surface contact with the air. Giving the decanter a swish every once in a while speeds up the process. One - two hours should be enough, if one of the wines is still really tight try pouring it back and forth into another decanter. The sloshing around reallly gets the air into the wine. Rick

I would decant about 4 hours ahead of time, they are all big wines that are destined for long term ageing.

The stonewell should only need 1-2 hours
the 98 can have up th 4 but if your are running short on time don't be afarid to shake the decanter

Thanks for the reply guys, but I suppose my real question is this.

Is it simply that young wines with long term cellaring potential such as the 98' 707 need more time to breath or decanted, than a more mature 89' Stonewell.

Thoughts or comments?

Gianna,

The advice above is all pretty well spot on, and the answer to your question is probably yes.

If having them at the same dinner don't be afraid to decant them all at the same time (you just end up owning lots of decanters), and have a try of them over regular intervals, and when calling for the next bottle, have a try and choose the one that YOU like the best at the time. You may end up serving the wines in a different order than you thought, or the textbook says, but it can be a pleasant surprise and lots of fun.

Enjoy these wines.

BA

The main reasion why I decant a wine is to remove it from sediment that may have formed during cellaring. Otherwise I do not decant. I much prefer to taste a wine immediately from the bottle and over several hours and then perhaps at 24 and 48 hrs. Why? I don't want to miss out on how the wine changes with exposure to air. If I leave it to sit for 4 hours I've could have missed a major part of that evolution.

Interestingly Emile Peynaud, the famous French enologist, was not a fan of decanting and argued that the deliberate aeration of a wine due to decanting could cause harm. It may help to consider what difference there is in pouring wine into a decanter and then into a glass, rather than directly into the glass. All you do is give it sightly more air when you go from bottle to decanter to glass. (Note that time is not a variable here as the wine is either in bottle or decanter.)

There are those who will argue that a decanter exposes a larger surface area to air and the longer its left there the more the wine will open up. This is true, all you have to do is put some wine into a glass and taste it over several hours to observe this. Note that I said glass and not decanter. The process of aeration is not restricted to the decanter. It may occur faster in a decanter, but then that also means that the oxidation of the wine is also faster. If its an old wine that could mean disaster.

Next time you are tasting a good quality young wine do a simple experiment. Pour half of the wine into your favorite lead crystal decanter and leave the other half in the bottle. Taste the wine form both sources over several hours preferably with a separate glass for decanter and bottle. I'm willing to bet that both wines will develop in almost identical ways, except that it will do so somewhat faster from the decanter. If you want to be really unbiased about it have someone else pour the decanted and bottle wine blind for you. Record your impressions, and see how they differ.

If you are going to be drinking these wines to see how they are developing then go ahead and open them up and drink them over what ever time period you want to allow.

The only real question in terms of how long these wines should be open Gianna, is if you are going to be serving them with a meal. In that case it is better to know how the wines evlove with time and then serve them when they are showing what you consider their best attributes. For that you really do need to have observed how each wine evolves over time. Does that mean you need to taste the wine from the opening of the bottle until its completely oxidized? No, of course not. But you do need to know how the wine develops over both short (hours) and long (months or years) periods of time. The best way to do this is to buy more than one bottle and open one at regular intervals and record the way cellaring changes the way the wine opens up over several hours after the bottle has been opened. Once you get to that point when you feel the wine is drinking well you can invite everyone over and serve it to them at its very best.

I'm sure there will be a flood of relpies from those with different experiences, but then wine is a personal thing, isn't it?

Mike

The post above is mine. I have to learn to log in to get credit for a post!! Especially the one above!

Mike

Anonymous wrote:Interestingly Emile Peynaud, the famous French enologist, was not a fan of decanting and argued that the deliberate aeration of a wine due to decanting could cause harm.

Mike,

Thats cause Peynaud was not drinking big Oz wines.

TORB wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interestingly Emile Peynaud, the famous French enologist, was not a fan of decanting and argued that the deliberate aeration of a wine due to decanting could cause harm.

Mike,

Thats cause Peynaud was not drinking big Oz wines.

TORB: That's certainly possible. I don't know whether he had experience with any Aussie wines, poor guy! But he did have many decades of drinking Bordeaux of all ages and types, lucky guy!

The point IÂ’m trying to make is that a lot of folks donÂ’t consider that once air reacts with wine you start an irreversible process. You canÂ’t go back. So if you decant and let a wine sit for several hours and then taste it you may have missed (forever or until you open the next bottle) the development of some of the flavors of the wine. For some that wonÂ’t matter, they want to drink the wine when its showing well and so aeration is done to soften the hard edges and release aromas. Fair enough, I have no problem with that; although there are some who argue that it does very little, and the changes people notice are due to the affect of the wine on taste and smell receptors. Who knows? IÂ’m happy just sitting back and enjoying the changes that occur after I open and drink the wine over several hours.

But there are exceptions. A few days ago I opened up a bottle of the Rockbare McLaren Vale 2002 Shiraz and it never really gave up anything over several hours, or indeed after 24 hours. But the mouthfeel of the wine is very impressive and IÂ’m sure there is more to this wine. So if the bottle I open tonight is also closed I might just pour a couple of glasses into a decanter and give it a good swirl to see what can be released. Of course what I should do is buy a few more bottles and see what happens over the next year or two!

Mike

in my tasting of Bordeaux the top end ie higher that thrid growth the wine have more power than most OZ shz anyway.
one of the ways i look for good wines is the taste over three to for day
the wine that fall about ie 2002 Jim Barry Criket Pitch after one day I leave alone. where as wines that hold there form always go into the celler.

One thing I have started to decant young Chard Leeuwin, Yattana, Woodlands. as these often need help to come out of there shell

merlot 128 wrote:in my tasting of Bordeaux the top end ie higher that thrid growth the wine have more power than most OZ shz anyway.
one of the ways i look for good wines is the taste over three to for day
the wine that fall about ie 2002 Jim Barry Criket Pitch after one day I leave alone. where as wines that hold there form always go into the celler.

I agree - much more power usually in the top Bordeaux.... but that 02 Jim Barry Cricket pitch is horrible. Hot, spirity with green streak. Best to decant directly into the sink.

GW

I know I decanted it for a friend who does not drinks much wine and gave him the rest of my six pack

It's a shame the 01 was a much better wine

Mike, thanks for your well constructed thoughts and notes about the various ways to enjoy wine, with or without decanting or breathing.

I've only been a serious wine drinker for about 7 years and I must say that the results of decanting / allowing wines to breath is incredibly varied.

I think I will definetely try decanting half of each bottle and then comparing the other half, hour by hour. The wines noted represent some of the best that I have, (I have no grange or HOG or French wines), and I have sat on these for a few years waiting to test them with anxious anticipation.

In the next few weeks I will post my tasting and breathing notes.