Prove once and for all whether decanting and aerating young red wines improves your enjoyment of their qualities. You can conduct the following experiment in your own home and make it truly scientific.
1. Buy two identical bottles of Red Wine of a quality you are likely to choose for normal drinking – typical supermarket price between $5 and $15.
2. Invite friends to visit you for a wine tasting.
3. About three hours before the event, open one bottle of wine and pour it into a wide base decanter. Splash the wine into the decanter vigorously, without spilling it, of course. The idea is to expose the wine to the air. Decanters are ideal for the job but, quite frankly, any glass container that lets the wine breathe will do the trick, even a cheap glass pitcher.
4. Allow the wine in the decanter, the empty bottle and the other unopened bottle to stand side by side to allow them to have the same room temperature (note that the room should not be hot – room temperature for red wine is advice from the age before central heating.)
5.Just before your guests arrive, label the empty bottle “A and label the unopened bottle “B”. Pour the wine in the decanter back into bottle “A”. A stainless steel or glass funnel helps with this task.
6. Provide each of your guests with two identical glasses marked “A” and “B”.
7. Pour a quarter glass of wine from bottle “A” into the first glass and the same amount from bottle “B” into the second glass.
8. Invite your guests to taste each glass and mark down on a piece of paper, which they prefer, “A” or “B”.
Note: It is important that your guests do not know which of the bottles has been decanted and aerated. Just in case they have seen this article, use different letters or use numbers instead. You should provide your guests with a glass of water to refresh the palate between tasting and you should suggest that some guests try “A” first and others try “B” first.
I have tried this test many times and nearly always the decanted, aerated wine comes out better. Once you have proven this to yourself you will try always to decant young red wines to allow them to breathe. In normal circumstances you do not need to pour the decanted wine back into its bottle. This is only done to hide which is which from the testers.
For your dinner party you will get double benefits from your decanter – the wine will be improved and the decanter will look great. The decanting experiment gives you the opportunity to prove a point and show off your new wine decanter at the same time.
John Faulkner is CEO of his online business, http://www.WineDecantersPlus.com
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