To Decant a Young Wine

Turning down Wine Creek Road this morning, I remembered an interesting conversation I had with a customer a few days back. The gentleman and his wife wanted to know if I recommended decanting the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, if I thought it would ”improve” the wine. 

The subject of decanting can quickly go down the slippery slope of wine snobism so I gave him the same adivce I always do.  Trust your own palate.  If you like to decant young wines in general, then yes, our wines taste incredible when allowed to see a bit of oxygen. See, the point of decanting a young wine, especially a cabernet or other full bodied red, is to expose the wine to O2 which helps soften both the fruit and the tannins in the wine. Growing on hillsides, we tend to have a lot of both. 

However, most folks don’t even own a decanter, which is commonly associated with drinking older wines. In this case, you are decanting primarily to remove any sediment which has naturally developed in the wine. Here’s the snob factor.  Your precious wine has been brought up from the cellar and allowed to stand neck up for three days.  You have the decanter. You have your trusty candle or flash light under the neck of the bottle. You find the “position of repose (the line of sediment formed on the bottle’s side). You tilt the wine 45 degrees away from the position of repose so wine isn’t flowing across the sediment and as you’re pouring the wine into the decanter, you are watching for the smallest amount of sediment to enter then decanter and then you know it’s time to stop pouring.  You are now 25% ready for your MS exam.  

Whenever you pour a wine into a decanter, it changes.  Young or Old, it has now entered the first step (exposure to oxygen) of turning to vinegar.  Will is evolve as it sits in the decanter? Yes.  Will it be better? Maybe yes, maybe no.  Can you use a water pitcher as a decanter or must you only use the finest Riedel one money can buy?  Although I’m sure the folks at Riedel would disagree (and truth be told I have both), I don’t think it matters and I like the sheer whimsy of serving young wine in anything from a beaker to a flower vase.  

What do you think?  Do you decant our younger wines? Do you think they improve with a little air?  And what about our older vintages? How long can say our 1993 Reserve Cabernet (15yr) or our 1998 Reserve Cabernet (10yr) last in the decanter before they head south?  I’m going to the kitchen right now to set it up out and I recommend you make tonight a decanter night, whatever its shape. Experiment. Go to your cellar and pull an older Michel Schlumberger Cabernet just for fun. Take some time and decant it. Get to know the wine over the course of an evening or even a day.

Jay Kell