The decanter – my favourite bit of wine kit and without doubt, the most fun, most practical and most beautiful wine gadgets there are to buy.
My first decanter came from the Portobello Road. I’d started my little wine collection with a bottle of £6.99 Saint Emilion from Safeways and added a few other beauties to it, stashing them away in a dark, cool cupboard, hoping that they’d turn in to the beautiful swans I’d been dreaming of, and I now had something to show it off in.
It worked a treat. It accentuated the colour and richness of the wine and made my thoroughly ordinary Saint Emilion a great deal less ordinary. I still have that decanter. In fact I’ve got two of them. They weigh a tonne, look fabulous – quite retro with their thick glass and wide silver necks – in fact, they could make even Jam Shed look like a good wine.
And so to the why, when and how to decant ….
I’m already a good way through the why – my key reason - to make the wine, or actually, the table, look the ‘bees knees’. You can hide all sorts of dreadful labels, including your supermarket own label (which are often actually really good) and generally make your dining table look 30% more swish with a jazzy decanter. But there’s also a couple of proper wine reasons. Firstly I’d decant wine to give it Oxygen. Many wines, particularly young reds, benefit from a bit of contact with oxygen. It softens the tannin and accentuates the fruit. My second wine reason is if the wine’s thrown a sediment. This is mainly for older, mature red wine. The tannins in young red solidify over time and if you’re opening an old wine (15 yrs plus) it could well have thrown a sediment and I’d rather drink my wine that eat it.
I was once lucky enough to drink a mega bottle of red burgundy in a beautiful restaurant in Beaune – Le Cep. I was 32, travelling with my boss, a great bon viveur - the life and soul of the party. He’d been ‘off the grog’ for five years having ‘had his allocation early’ and he’d ordered this special bottle; for me. He’d taste it and spit it out, I’d taste it and drink every drop. Along came Madame, the maître d, larger than life and twice as loud with a bottle of Gevrey Chambertin 1985. It was 2004. Madame presented the bottle to my boss, decanted the wine at the table and, five minutes later, returned to pour our glasses. Really good, mature Gevrey Chambertin should be rich and opulent with plenty of ripe, red fruit mixed with a whack of spice and some earthy notes. It’s sometimes described as an iron fist in a velvet glove. It took maybe five minutes for the wine to come alive. Gradually the strawberry, red cherry and plumb notes emerged. Then came the wet leaves, the earthiness and some smoky spiciness. It’s one of the most vivid wine memories I have – that smell of the wine, the restaurant and then the rich coq au vin when it arrived. Totally mouthwatering and delicious but within 20 minutes the party was over. The wine, having had 30 minutes of oxygen, fell to pieces. The power and persistancy had subsided to leave a muted red wine with little to no energy.
Be very careful decanting an old wine, particularly and old Pinot Noir from Burgundy. Yes it might have thrown a sediment so ticking a big box of what to decant, but once it’s in contact with oxygen it’s live …. so don’t hang around to enjoy it.
The how to decant is really very simple. If your decanting for my first two reasons, to make it look great and or to give the wine more oxygen you can be pretty robust with the bottle. Off with the top and in with the wine and you’ll see an improvement with many wines three hours later. With my third reason though you’ve got to be a bit more careful. Mature wine should be stood up for a good few hours – ideally a day – then gently poured in to the decanter being very careful to stop before you get to the sludge. A candle used to be the essential kit but now you can use the torch of your mobile phone underneath the wine – very effective.
I guess the only wines I would avoid decanting are those that wouldn’t look better for it. Whites tend to look far too much like a sample from the local hospital and Rosés look much prettier in their bottles. Here are four of my favourite decanters below:
Riedel Vinum Cabernet Sauvignon Decanter @ £35.95
The Young Wine Decanter by Richard Brendon and Jancis Robinson @ £140
The Mature Wine Decanter by Richard Brendon and Jancis Robinson @ £150