Wine Decanters

I have always found that decanting a quality bottle of wine improves the wine’s character, balance, and flavors.  The idea is that decanting (or leaving the wine in your glass) allows the wine to breathe, which essentially means that the alcohol interacts with the air, smoothing out some of the wine’s rough edges.  (Even white wines benefit from decanting.)  In talking with the wine maker at Provenance, Tom Rinaldi recommends always decanting your wine before serving.  When decanting older wines (5+ years), the time in the decanter also allows the sediment in the wine to settle to the bottom of the decanter before serving.  This sediment can be caught before pouring the last of the wine by slowly rotating the decanter while pouring.

So, what kind of wine decanter (carafe) do you need?  A good wine decanter has the following traits:

·       a large surface area (at the level of the wine) increasing the interaction with air

·       an opening large enough to allow you to pour into and out of it neatly

·       built of a material that won’t react with the acids in the wine (think glass, not metal or plastic)

There are a number of vessels on the market that satisfy these needs.  On one end of the spectrum is the Riedel decanter, perfectly engineered to maximize your wine-drinking experience.  Then there are heavier, less-expensive, yet still effective wine decanters available at Cost Plus World Market, BevMo, Create and Barrel, and Wine Enthusiast.  Some thought went into these decanters to provide a balance between aeration and convenience.  Then, there are other vessels that can be repurposed for decanting wine, including any glass pitcher.  Ikea sells a simple, glass pitcher that holds a full bottle of wine for about $3.  They also carry a more expensive pitcher ($10) that more closely resembles a wine decanter.  The most important consideration is to have more surface area of the wine exposed than is possible in the wine bottle itself.