Let the wine breathe.

How to decant wine

Before we spent all our money on red wine and concrete, Barb and I travelled to Italy for a little lifestyle education. To my mind the Italians have been the best at living for many centuries. With their Mediterranean climate, their flare for design, and their love of food and wine, Italians can teach us all a lesson about how to enjoy life to the fullest.

In Florence there's a famous restaurant called Il Giostra

When you order wine at Il Giostra, you trigger the most elabourate decanting rituals imaginable. When we went the first time we were entranced by the painstaking attention to detail the server demonstrated. Our first meal at Il Giostra was one of the most expensive I had ever had, but the night, the food, the wine, and the decanting ritual, were all so magical, that we chose to return for our last meal in Florence. And we lucked out: the person pouring the wine was none other than our Hapsburg prince himself.

He arrived tableside with all the ingredients--three wine glasses (was he going to sit down with us?), a decanter, and a bottle of 1997 Chianti Classico Reserva. This wine is the best of the best from Tuscany, made from grapes grown in the best land, aged in barrel and bottle in the winery's cellar before release, and from an outstanding vintage.

Before opening the bottle, our Prince told us no bottle leaves his own cellar before resting for six months. "And this bottle has been down there for two years!" We were impressed.

He then opened the bottle and sniffed at the cork. Satisfied, he tucked the cork in his pocket and poured about an ounce into the first glass. I was ready to sample but the Prince wasn't. He picked up the glass and rolled the wine around until it had coated all of the insides of the glass. He then poured the glass's contents into the next glass and repeated the process. When the third glass had been similarily rinsed, he poured the ounce of wine into the decanter and repeated the rinsing process. Then he poured the wine into the first glass and set it aside. Obviously what he was doing was to make sure neither the glasses nor the decanter had any impurities that would affect the taste or smell of the wine.

Satisfied, he now poured a taste into my glass. It was heavenly! With my approval he decanted the rest of the wine. Because we had been there before, we knew what would happen with the first ounce of wine that had been used for rinsing. Back to the kitchen, perhaps for disposal or cooking, or perhaps for the chefs. Once again he surprised us. Sniffing the glass, he pronounced it "too good for the kitchen," and upended it into our decanter! Perhaps because of the ritual, or perhaps because of the €150 price tag, that bottle of wine was perhaps the best I have ever tasted.

I am not suggesting you go out and get a Hapsburg prince to do your decanting for you. I am suggesting that decanting wine will elevate both the experience and the flavour of enjoying a bottle of wine. So consider it an essential part of your wine ritual. Decanting will improve the flavour of all red wine. And there's no better way to salute the gift of wine a dinner guest brings than to decant it.

So get yourself down to the local dollar store and buy yourself a couple of decanters. Expensive is not necessary, but make sure you get the ones with the little wire racks that allow you to invert them so the water can run out when you rinse them. NEVER wash them with soap!

Now when dinner parties approach, get the decanters out and open your best red wines an hour before serving. Make sure the decanter has no off odours. Upend the bottle and let it glug, glug, glug into the decanter. Remember, you are not pouring beer. The idea of decanting is to expose the wine to as much air before you serve it in order to allow the wine to breathe so the flavours are more pronounced. Don't worry about sediment as most decanters will allow any sediment to fall to the bottom of the decanter. However make sure to cover the mouth of the decanter with plastic wrap or something. Most of our homes have fruit flies all year around now and you don't want any floaters in you prized vintage.

When you present the wine at the table, don't forget to put the bottle on the table too. Some of your vinophile guests may want to check vintage, region or alcohol level.

There are several products on the market now that claim to do what decanters do. You affix them to the bottle and pour the wine through them. To me this is a triumph of technique over ritual. Yes they allow the wine to breathe. But some of them sound like a toilet flushing and others take too long to pour. They may save time, but at the expense of ritual. And as I learned from my Hapsburg prince, the true enjoyment of wine is all about ritual.

Cheers!

Keith

Keith Watt is proprietor of Pender's own Morning Bay Vineyard.