Decanting Young Cabs?

What’s the protocol for airing young cali cabs? Next week I have on tap, 2015 Robert Mondavi To Kalon, 2016 William & Mary Cabernet, and 2016 William & Mary Proprietary Red. I have a window to double decant them 14 hours before dinner, a window to possibly double decant an hour before, and can pop’n’pour as well (at a steakhouse).

I had a 2016 W&M cab in February and Will’s advice was “pull the cork on it, maybe sample an oz or so, then let it sit at cellar temp for a few hours. When you get to the restaurant, throw it into a decanter or if they have good Cab stems, just pour some glasses and let it breathe at an arms length.”

Thats what we did and the wine was fantastic. The oz we sampled upon opening was also great so no matter what you do, that wine is going to be excellent.

Thanks Chris! Looking forward to the trio.

Outside of sediment reduction - Young Cali cabs are the reason decanting exists

That mondavi is a big young cab so I’d decant a while unless you want a big oaky fruit bomb. I’ve had it PnP and I do like big oaky fruit bombs at times so it was good for that.

Wills wines require less time in my experience.

Keep away from open flames or electrical sparks. Expect eager beavers, would-be woodchucks, and chipper woodpeckers.

Seeing a lot of notes on big young Cabs that say “even better the second day” makes me think double decanting 24 hours before drinking, and then maybe even a couple times the next afternoon to get more air into the wine, is a great idea.

I’d open each in AM, pour a bit off to get it to the shoulder, and leave uncorked on counter all day.

I decant 4 hours in advance, pour back into the bottle, re-cork, to the restaurant we go.

I’ve had the 16 William & Mary several times and it really benefits from serious time in decanter. I have done everything from 4 -12 hrs and the more time the better. They are great wines.

Zactly!

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I’d have no problem decanting 6 hrs ahead.

Or the third day, or the fourth day, or the fifth day, or two weeks later.

Personally, if they are known to be monstrously overbearing Cal-Cabs, then I’d open the bottles at least five days ahead of time.

Each day, from each bottle, I’d pour a little one-ounce taste in the kitchen, and then immediately recork the bottle and put it in the bottom of the kitchen refrigerator, at about 35F-38F [and having some readily available rubber re-corking thingamabobs can help in case you break some of the real corks].

If, after a few days, a bottle seemed like it might be peaking, then I wouldn’t open it again until the dinner - I’d just let the bottle continue to sit in the bottom of the fridge at 35F-38F.

On the day of the dinner, I’d get the bottles out of the fridge no more than maybe two hours prior to the beginning of the tasting - and if you’re dealing with heat like we get in August, then I’d keep them in the fridge right up until I was heading to the car to leave - grabbing the bottles from the fridge would be the very last thing I did before walking out the door [in August].

PS: I have no experience whatsoever with any of the wines in question, and it’s possible that some of your wines might peak as early as Day Two - but I wouldn’t worry at all about them sitting recorked in the fridge at 38F for another three days until the tasting.

PPS: I push my corks back in HARD - so hard that I often need to get out the corkscrew to remove the corks again.
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Five days ahead of time?!? To me (and, I’ve not purposely done this), that’s just crazy talk. The wine would most likely taste oxidized by day five, wouldn’t it?

I’ve had the W&M Cab and we did a pop-and-pour and it was best toward the last glass. I’ve give it the (as Matt indicated above) 4-hour decant at home and then re-bottle.

Not in my personal experience with Big Reds - if well made, then they just keep going & going & going.

Although, admittedly, putting them to the test of multi-day oxygenation will allow you to learn very quickly whether or not they were well made in the first place.

And, again, if you like where the wine is a few days before the tasting, then shove the cork back in hard, keep it at 35F, and don’t pull the cork out again until all the glasses are sitting in front of you at the dinner table [and everyone’s ready to start tasting].

I’ve never had William & Mary, so I have no idea how it shows upon opening.

But it’s possible that you prefer your reds to show big ETOH & big oak & big residual sugar & big fruit esters, in which case pop-and-pour might be the best approach for you.

Still, though, I’d strongly urge you [and anyone else reading this thread] to start experimenting with slow & leisurely week-long tastings of your young wines.

You’ll stumble upon all sorts of knowledge of the wines which you never realized was there for the stumbling upon.

No, as a matter of fact, I don’t enjoy wines that show, “…ETOH & big oak & big residual sugar & big fruit esters…” Not decanting a young Cab for five days doesn’t mean it’s going to show that way. This wine is a great example of that. I think I’ll stick with the “knowledge” I’ve gained from decanting and enjoying as opposed to what you say I’ll glean from drinking a week-long bottle sojourn. I admire your deeper understanding of the wine world though.

Why do you decant?

  1. The original reason was to pour the wine off the sediment. Older Port would be the classic example of this. That is of course irrelevant if you are taking the wines to a restaurant, since they will be shaken up quite nicely and the sediment thoroughly dispersed.

  2. To aerate the wine. This does two things. First is evaporation - you get rid of some of the odors caused by the more volatile compounds such as the hydrogen sulfide and alcohol that you may get from a freshly-opened bottle. Of course, you don’t know what else took off with those, but that’s life. Second thing is oxidation and that’s a little more contentious. One reason the aromatics change is because in the presence of all that new air, some smaller molecules combine with oxygen and thereby become less volatile. The stuff is still in the wine but the heavier molecules don’t get carried up to your nostril so you don’t notice them. And some other things combine with oxygen and maybe become less likely to react with the compounds in your mouth, so the wine may seem “smoother”. This is also what is called “opening up”.

So you need to think about which wines benefit from these things. One way of eliminating the sediment issue is to decant your wine carefully at home, clean out the bottle, then pour the wine back in w/out the sediment. That of course will also aerate your wine considerably, no matter how gentle you are.

In your case, the wines are really young. I don’t know the W&M but my guess is that at this point, the wines are unlikely to have thrown a lot of sediment. So you’re more interested in the aeration. You can do that a few hours ahead and probably suffer no harm. That doesn’t mean just take the cork out - it means pour the wine into another container like a decanter and put it back into the bottle for travel. And if you’re doing that anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to check for sediment at the same time, just in case.

Alternatively, just decant it at the restaurant.

There’s pretty much no way I’d open it multiple days in advance, particularly if I didn’t know the wine first hand. In my experience, since it’s what I did for a time, having bottles around for several days, even in the fridge, resulted in degradation of the wine far more often than improvement.

Regarding multi-day decanting - some people say that Barolo is improved that way. I don’t believe it, but they’re entitled to their opinions. Some people say that wines that have been oxygenated before bottling, like classic Rioja, can also improve. I know that’s not true. Some people say that big young tannic wines will improve because the tannins become oxygenated. They’re entitled to their opinions.

Remember that ANY perceived improvement will depend on the wine, on the temperature of the wine, and on the taster. That’s why it’s hard to generate much consensus regarding the issue - the only thing that you can say for certain is “it depends”.

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Exactly what I would say.

Big red wines that need some time to “open up” usually do it in an hour or two after a quick double decant, i.e. giving the wine some aeration by decanting it to another container and immediately back to the bottle. The only wines that could actually benefit from really long decanting are those that suffer from reduction, because the reduction masks away most of the aromatics and makes the wine appear dull and stuffy. Decanting them for several hours or letting the wait for 12-24 hours after a double decant usually does the trick.

However, I’d never let a wine stay open for multiple days before a tasting (unless it was a sweet wine or an off-dry Riesling) and even with double-decanting that 24 hours feels rather extreme. I’ve certainly had wines that have been great even after a week of being open, but I can’t remember an instance where they have been better then than soon after opening.

But, Otto and Greg, “…you’ll stumble upon all sorts of knowledge of the wines which you never realized was there for the stumbling upon.”
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Exactly what I would say.

Big red wines that need some time to “open up” usually do it in an hour or two after a quick double decant, i.e. giving the wine some aeration by decanting it to another container and immediately back to the bottle. The only wines that could actually benefit from really long decanting are those that suffer from reduction, because the reduction masks away most of the aromatics and makes the wine appear dull and stuffy. Decanting them for several hours or letting the wait for 12-24 hours after a double decant usually does the trick.

However, I’d never let a wine stay open for multiple days before a tasting (unless it was a sweet wine or an off-dry Riesling) and even with double-decanting that 24 hours feels rather extreme. I’ve certainly had wines that have been great even after a week of being open, but I can’t remember an instance where they have been better then than soon after opening.
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Only old Madeira. A day in the decanter for every decade in the bottle.