The Auswine Forum

Is it possible to open two wines and prefer A to B after an initial tasting, then after decanting and sitting for a while, prefer B to A? How much can wine B improve if you didn't like it to start with?

I ask because I haven't done a lot of decanting and waiting - I tend to get drink now styles that I like right out of the bottle, so I'm wondering how much decanting can improve the basic quality of the wine?

I'm guessing here that if you don't like what comes out of the bottle, you won't like what comes out of the decanter.

And what of cellar door winetastings? They're straight out of a bottle that was opened who knows how long before? If it's a freshly opened bottle, do you wait for an hour before you taste, or swirl like crazy to get some air in there?

Cheers
-Markus

Wines change with oxygen contact. Therefore, of course it's possible for wines A and B to swap pozzies. And therefore, it's also possible for a single wine to "get better" after airing. Or worse.

From my experience... a lot and a lot.

So yes it is very possible.

How often do winess get worse after decanting?

-markus

Of course it depends on how long you leave them in contact with air, but for standard lengths of time (3-4 hours) the chance that a young red wine will get worse is very small. Heavily aged wines sometimes fall to pieces in the decanter - decanting wines mimics the aging process to some extent, so for aged wines it can be like you've left them in the cellar too long. As far as I know whites don't benefit from decanting.

If you don't already decant your wines I would highly recommend it. It makes a huge difference to how good the wine is. Personally I now will not drink expensive wines without decanting them first because it's a waste.

As far as how much they can change, I've seen transformations where you wouldn't believe it was the same wine. 2003 Troll Creek Shiraz for instance, tasted savoury and acid straight out of the bottle, all sweet vanilla and chocolate after a few hours in the decanter. Generally if the wine tastes acid or a bit tannic straight out of the bottle, or if it's missing a little fruit, it's a good candidate to improve in the decanter.

For wines which are before or at the early stages of their 'drinking window', then oxygen contact via decanting can be beneficial in aerating the wine, making it more approachable.

For wines that are at the end or beyond their 'drinking window', then it's more risky and the hot topic of the moment 'Audouzing' becomes an alternative. This is however a method devised for absolutely ancient bottles.

Wines that throw a heavy sediment (port, but also lightly filtered or unfiltered wines) are also candidates for decanting

White wines are also candidates for decanting (for aeration purposes).

A very simplistic walkthrough, hope it helps.

Markus Stone wrote:How often do winess get worse after decanting?

-markus

It varies depends on the style, age, storage conditions, and of course personal preferences.

Some very old wine may get worse if been decanted for too long. It's all subjective.

Hey Ian... I've tried audozing young wines. I'll let you guys know the results if I get any conclusive ones. heh

Hmmm... okay, I'll have to give it a go.

The percieved wisdom seems to be that contact with oxygen after opening is good for all but the oldest wines.

So does that mean that a younger oxidised wine has in a sense been exposed to air too early and it's gone past it's window? Sort of like leaving it in the decanter for too long?

I'll have a play on the weekend - I got a barossa shiraz pack the other day and an identical one arrived a few days later, so I'll be able to compare the effect of decanting in a reasonable scientific fasion.

BTW, has anyone heard of this technique of violently *shaking up* very young reds? I stumbled accross it when looking up 'Audouzing'

-Markus

Alex F wrote:Hey Ian... I've tried audozing young wines. I'll let you guys know the results if I get any conclusive ones. heh

Maybe I am showing my ignorance but...

what is audozing ?

Basically just opening the cork and letting the bottle stand, undisturbed for 4-6 hours. In theory its supposed to 'slow oxygenate' the bottle, so good for old wines etc. here is a link:

http://dat.erobertparker.com/bboard/showthread.php?t=88001

Kind of hard to test the effects though, since old wine is so variable anyway, but I do it on new wine sometimes, maybe open and stand 8 hours in advance?

Alex F wrote:Basically just opening the cork and letting the bottle stand, undisturbed for 4-6 hours. In theory its supposed to 'slow oxygenate' the bottle, so good for old wines etc. here is a link:

http://dat.erobertparker.com/bboard/showthread.php?t=88001

Kind of hard to test the effects though, since old wine is so variable anyway, but I do it on new wine sometimes, maybe open and stand 8 hours in advance?

Thankyou.

I now have a "name" for the practice.

If memory serves me right, sensory studies have been done looking at the effect of pulling out the cork and leaving the bottle stand instead of decanting. I thought it was found that the tiny surface area of wine in a full bottle, the small ullage volume, and big volume of wine meant that the level of "oxygenation" of the entire wine was going to be negligible - hence the common use of decanters. Not sure if this was reputable, published data, but I remember hearing something about it.

Wine Girl wrote:If memory serves me right, sensory studies have been done looking at the effect of pulling out the cork and leaving the bottle stand instead of decanting. I thought it was found that the tiny surface area of wine in a full bottle, the small ullage volume, and big volume of wine meant that the level of "oxygenation" of the entire wine was going to be negligible - hence the common use of decanters. Not sure if this was reputable, published data, but I remember hearing something about it.

That is what I have heard as well. But I figure it can't hurt so I experiment. I learnt about the method after learning about the name, I guess others just do it blissfully without knowing that Audoze exists

I found that some people are too much in decanting the wines.
If I compare the same full body red wine that aged for long time in the cellar with decanting and without most of the times I found that the wine after decanting got:
• Less body.
• Less astringency.
• Less acidic.
• More aroma and fruitiness.
For some very mature wines the decanting is a death row.
In my experience I had a few wines that collapse after short time of decanting one of them fall apart after 30 minutes of exposing to air.
There is a chemical explanation for the necessity of decanting and that connecting to the fact that despite a very short time of some exposure to oxygen (on the first weeks after bottling) most of the bottle maturation is without any oxygen and with that environment different chemical compounds created.
I seems that for very young wines decanting is the opposite, this wines need to be drink fresh, and decanting is bed for them. Aged wines need to be decanting to get the most. Wines that are very mature (over the pick) need to be decant with extra care in my opinion the best is decant in a wine glass (just pour it in the premium red wine glass and let it breath for a while).

D.I: I find some of your decanting observations interesting. Perhaps, being a winemaker (and therefore having a formal education in science), you could please quickly (and in layman terms!) explain what chemical reactions are occurring during decanting that result in the wine (a) decreasing in astringency, and (b) decreasing in acidity. I am just curious.

I'm sort of guessing here, but does it take it further from that geranium / violet taste of freshly fermented red wine (not sure if this is the term you guys use, but that's what I get. It's strongest immediately after fermentation and decreases steadily with age, and most reds have it to one degree or another)
...and more towards that yummy smell that is left in a glass after it is emptied and has sat for a few minutes - that sort of woody caramelised smell?

-Markus

Wine Girl wrote:If memory serves me right, sensory studies have been done looking at the effect of pulling out the cork and leaving the bottle stand instead of decanting. I thought it was found that the tiny surface area of wine in a full bottle, the small ullage volume, and big volume of wine meant that the level of "oxygenation" of the entire wine was going to be negligible - hence the common use of decanters. Not sure if this was reputable, published data, but I remember hearing something about it.

Yes, exactly, right. But, M Audouze is evidently usually opening bottles of at least 50 years, where decanting runs a very good chance of shortening the 'opened' life span of the bottle by 75% at least, probably. Whereas simply uncorking and immediately pouring exposes you to a fair chance of 'bottle stink'. His 'methode' seems to me to be a fair compromise for what are probably very old wines. Not to mention the fact that's it's possible that some of them may have a considerable ullage, so that more than just the 'width of the neck' is being exposed to air - surface area is somewhat bigger.
cheers,
Graeme

"75% at least, probably"...I love imaginative statistics.

I will bear your comments in mind next time I crack open a 50 year old bottle of wine!

Markus Stone wrote:BTW, has anyone heard of this technique of violently *shaking up* very young reds? I stumbled accross it when looking up 'Audouzing'

-Markus

That technique is know as "the Barossa decant" - pour the wine into a vessel and shake the buggery out of it!

I saw it used to very good effect last year by Stuart Blackwell to kick a rather shy and ungiving 2002 St. Halletts Old Block into life. At the time I said witnessing such a shy wine turn into a super-vixen was like watching Salma Hayek stripping out of Librarian's clothes!

Cheers,
Ian

So...

You're at a cellar door tasting and the wine tastes too young and could do with a nice dcant and breather for several hours.

What do you do?

How do you know how the wine will develop over a number of hours without...er... waiting a number of hours?

-Markus

n4sir wrote:was like watching Salma Hayek stripping out of Librarian's clothes!

Cheers,
Ian

Nice..librarians are so hot right now...

Adam wrote:

n4sir wrote:was like watching Salma Hayek stripping out of Librarian's clothes!

Cheers,
Ian

Nice..librarians are so hot right now...

Oooohhhhh...I'd like to see that too...

Markus Stone wrote:Hmmm... okay, I'll have to give it a go.

The percieved wisdom seems to be that contact with oxygen after opening is good for all but the oldest wines.

So does that mean that a younger oxidised wine has in a sense been exposed to air too early and it's gone past it's window? Sort of like leaving it in the decanter for too long?

I'll have a play on the weekend - I got a barossa shiraz pack the other day and an identical one arrived a few days later, so I'll be able to compare the effect of decanting in a reasonable scientific fasion.

BTW, has anyone heard of this technique of violently *shaking up* very young reds? I stumbled accross it when looking up 'Audouzing'

-Markus

Markus
Good for you! Would be interested to see the balance between the three methods and a bit of 'rough science' is always worthwhile.
1) Straight from the bottle (with / without time to breathe)
2) Traditional decant
3) Barossa decant (yes just an extension of the old 'vigourous' decant I guess - interesting to do this on some whites that have some dissolved CO2. Doing this to a Dr L riesling turned it from a light but fairly uninspiring wine into dull sugar water.).

I note that with older wines (and no decanting) there is a certain amount of settling, not just of sediment, but also of the wine itself e.g. 1st glass is lighter, than the 2nd, which is lighter than the 3rd etc. I doubt this would occur with a younger wine (or at least not to the same degree), so you might be able to do all three methods with the same bottle?

regards

Ian

I played with the three methods above with two wines;

A) Palumara Estate 2005 Shiraz (Barossa) - This one I've had before, and while I could taste that it had a good intensity of flavour, the tannins were overriding. I wondered how much the decanting would help

B) an embarrasingly cheap bottle of non-vintage wine from 'south eastern australia' - 'The Elms Shiraz Merlot'. It's not a high scorer, but it goes with dinner when we're not making a special occasion of it.

I wondered how much the more moderate complexity and intensity would hold up.

Two wines - one too full on, the other not full on enough.

The Results;

The Paulmara Estate was the same as I remembered it out of the bottle - Overly young with a tannic and somewhat bitter taste, like black coffee, with blackberry, pepper and aniseed flavours. Partly I guess you would expect some of this from a young wine (1 year old), but I wondered if I just missed the fruit because of the overpowering tannins.

The Elms Shiraz Merlot hasn't got a lot of intensity, character, or fruit, but it's quaffable.

The 'barossa decant' made a remarkable difference - smoothing out the bitterness while retaining some of the tannic 'bite', allowing the fruit to emerge. Interestingly, with both bottles, a white ploom was evident on the surface of the first glass poured. It soon dissipated, but I'm not sure what it was.

The traditional decant that had been left for 3-4 hours was even smoother, the tannins further relaxed, but it seemed to me that the fruit was a little more laid back in the traditional decant, and more upfront in the 'Barossa decant'.

There was a big difference between the straight out of the bottle version and the two decanting methods. Most tasters preferred the traditional decant. I was the exception - I liked the Braossa style decant because it had the smoothness, but also retained a tannic bite and I felt the fruit was stronger. I felt that (at least, with these two wines, at least ) that the traditional decant left it a little flat.

In fact, I was the only person who felt that the cheapie bottle of 'The Elms' Shiraz Merlot, actually suffered from a traditional decant (4 hours) the tannins dissapeared almost completely leaving it tasting a bit more like a bad lambrusco lolly-water.

No-one preferred the straight out of the bottle sample.

So there you go. I was suprised to see that there was such a difference (but I guess you guys knew all along, didn't you )

Who would have thought I'd be converted 'decanter' in a single weekend - and recant on my anti-decanter banter and become a pro-decanter ranter!(say that three times fast .

Sheesh, next you guys'll have me buying expensive wine or something!

Cheers

-Markus

But was this blind? Although seeing that if you were antidecanting you probably would have been biased against decanting.

It was blind for everyone else, except me. Everyone else preferred the traditional decant. I preferred the Barossa version.

In terms of bias; I wasn't really 'anti decanting' - I'd just never really tried it - for some reason I had always thought it was reserved for things like grange hermitage, and had assumed that the difference between the decanted versions and the straight from the bottle version would be subtle at best.

It turned out that there was a big difference between decanted and non-decanted (and a subtler difference between the 2 methods of decanting).

All of the blind tasters preferred the traditional decant.

In the end, my findings were the opposite of my bias ie; I'd proven myself wrong, which I'm pretty happy to be, since I'm new to this and the objective is to learn.

I'm going to keep playing with this to get a better sense of what I can expect from a decant to get a sense of how long it should sit for.

Cheers

-Markus

Wait until you do a Riedel masterclass. Again a huge difference in taste and flavour and a steady decline in your bankaccount.