Decanting Wine in Six Easy Steps
Decanters increase your enjoyment of wine. The visual appeal in the color of the wine will amaze you. The golden amber of white wine or the ruby or burgundy of red wine is like artwork. The decanter will allow you to smell the wine’s wonderful aroma as it breathes. To this point, you haven’t even tasted it yet! The anticipation builds. The first taste will be full of flavor. Wine is meant to be enjoyed. |
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Decanting in six easy steps:
Caution: Special bottles of wine that have been stored for 15 years or greater should NOT be decanted. Older, fragile wines are quickly damaged by exposure to oxygen. You should drink this wine immediately. Slowly pour these wines directly into a glass watching for sediment.
1. Choose a bottle of wine.
2. Ensure your wine decanter is clean and dry.
3. For red wine with sediment, allow the bottle to sit upright for 24-36 hours prior to opening.
4. Chill your wine to it’s optimal serving temperature:
- 45ºF- 50ºF for white wines
- 52ºF - 65ºF for red wines
5. Simply pour your wine into the decanter to help the aeration process. For red wines less than 15 years old, slowly pour watching for sediment to flow into the neck of the bottle. Stop pouring as soon as you see sediment or cloudy colored wine. There will be ½ to 1 inch of wine left in your bottle.
6. Allow your wine to decant for at least 30 minutes. You should sample your wine at different time intervals to see what tastes best to you.
If your full bottle of wine is not enjoyed right away, you can either store it in the decanter with a stopper or you can return the unused wine to its original bottle. If returned to the bottle, you can use a vacuum pump (like the VacuVin wine saver pump) to extract the air from the opened bottle. Most vacuum pumps come with reusable rubber stoppers to reseal the wine bottle. The vacuum slows down the oxidation process so that your wine can be enjoyed for a longer period of time. We recommend that you drink your wine approximately 2-3 days after it was initially opened.
Cheers!
Jennifer Sterling
