Do you decant Champagne?

Do you decant Champagne?

Decanting is something I often think is a good idea when I’m serving young Champagne, especially one that I’ve had before and know improves with air, but so far I’ve never quite been able to get myself to do it. What about the rest of you? Have you tried it? Made it a regular practice?

Looks like I’m the only one who picked occasionally so far. I feel like we’ve done it together before but I don’t have a clear memory of a specific instance.

It isn’t very often. Probably less than five times in about 19 years of drinking champagne as a wine geek.

You misspelled Jonathan’s name in the last option.

I tried it once (a Cedric Bouchard wine), but did not care for the results.

Depends on the champagne, and also the venue. Champagnes are usually killed off at the beginning of the meal, so it’s logistically difficult to do with our BYO formats.

A few years ago, a 1996 Salon that I drank at home benefitted greatly from an afternoon decant.

The perpetual worry is that decanting is irreversible, so it’s a decision you have to stick with once decanted. I’ve felt the same trepidation with old Barolo, but at this point, experience has told me that it’s more often than not the right call. I think I just have to get there with champagne as well.

Nice companion with the flutes thread.

It is a compromise. I have no doubt that decanting could have a favorable impact on the performance of some champagnes but at the cost of the bubbles. All in all, I’d prefer to have my nose tickled by a bubbly drink and let it open up over the course of the meal.

I quite like the idea of the decanter sitting in a small iced bath, and have opened a few bottles that could have used this treatment, however I have never been organised or bothered enough to do it yet.

Superbly said.

Interesting. How far ahead do you decant? What happens to the bubbles - does the wine go flat? What kind of glass do you use? How much of the aeration be accomplished by drinking the wines from a Burgundy glass?

If it’s just me and my better half drinking a bottle over an evening I won’t decant but if we’re having people over and/or drinking it with food I almost always gently decant into a carafe about 45 minutes before serving, leaving it in a wine cabinet to keep the temperature at 10 C (unless it’s a particularly old or fragile wine, in which case I slow-ox). I find that this opens the Champagne up very well; it mellows the mousse but doesn’t remove it - younger wines can take quite a few hours in a carafe before they go flat.

some grower champagnes can be a bit too effervescent in their youth…have definitely done this with some recently released vouette et sorbee wines

I tend to decant or just vigorously swirl in glass my sparking wine when I see or suspect over enthusiastic bubbles. I don’t like the bubbles much anyway so getting rid of a good half of them right off the bat and then serving in a larger glass to further deaccentuate them is my modus operandi.

The wine has never gone comepletely flat on me but I wouldn’t mind that if it happened. I prefer the level of carbonation to be just above spritzy. I recognize that I’m probably the outlier here since many people go to great lengths to preserve the moose and appearance of the bubbles while I just find them distracting.

Thanks for these answers about the bubbles. Gives a lot more information about whether I want to follow this practice or not.

I take it that people are not decanting older champagnes?

Never heard of doing this. Now I want to try it with a crowd of wine geeks (that doesn’t include any of you) just to shock the hell out of them.

20 - 30 minutes. To air out young champagne. I can’t recall decanting an older champagne.

Bubbles are fine. I’m not obsessed.

I drink champagne out of whatever is around that is not a flute. For the past 15 years or so. My standard at home or out at a byo was Riedel Vinum Chianti/SB or White Burg in the past. Sometimes even a Vinum Red Burg Glass. I have GGG now at home but have not used with decanted champagne.

For my tastes, using a standard glass (vs. a flute) and consuming the bottle over time splits the difference nicely.

As I posted in the other thread I do it very occasionally. A Champagne I did it a number of times for was '96 Clos des Goisses for the first 18 or so months after it was released. Decanting significantly improved this wine with little compromise to its effervescence.

As far as old Champagne, I decanted a number of 375ml bottles of 1906 Pol Roger due to sediment issues.

Hi Ray - how long did you decant the CdG for?

Hi Jay,

Probably about ten or so minutes prior to pouring the first glass, but depending on how many people were sharing the bottle the CdG stayed in the decanter for 45 minutes to a couple of hours.

I’ve decanted young Cedric Bouchard wines and generally been pleased with the results over a period of say, 20 minutes to one hour. I would not suggest a wide-bottomed decanter as you will lose the bubbles more quickly. But otherwise I think it helps the wines open up a bit and could see it working with other Champagne as well.