From the Elderton Wine Blog – 22 April 2016
To decant of not to decant… this is a question we often receive at Elderton regarding our red wines. The easy answer to this question is that there is no easy answer! However, here are a few pointers from Decanter Magazine that will hopefully get you going in the right direction:
- Generally speaking, some aeration is better than none, although we do understand that you may be desperate for a drink!
- Simply opening a wine and leaving it in the bottle for a few hours will have little effect on the flavour of the wine.
- Younger wines should be decanted for a longer period (1 – 2 hours), and the process of decanting can be a touch rougher (you want the wine to receive oxygen to open it up).
- Older wines need to be decanted gently (to remove any potential sediment), and for a short amount of time < 1 hour only. Too much time and the wine may fall apart.
- Very rich wines can shed some of their puppy fat from longer decanting, but will lose some of their freshness.
- You cannot resuscitate a wine that is already past it, through decanting.
For best drinking pleasure also, we recommend serving the wines at the correct drinking temperatures (something we often don’t do well in this country). When we say cellar temperature we would ideally like our red wines served around 18 degrees Celsius. As always though, it is each to their own. Don’t let this article put you off if you are happy drinking wines in a different manner. Wine is an individual thing, and nothing upsets us more than wine snobbery. Basically, do what makes you happy – especially if it is drinking Elderton!