I am attending a dinner tonight and the host is pouring a 1955 Barolo from his cellar. He is decanting it 6 hours ahead of the dinner before ultimately double decanting it back into the original bottle. I was there when the bottle was opened and the nose was quite fragrant and really delicious. Obviously with a wine this old who knows what it will ultimately drink like but the 6 hour decant has me curious.
I understand the need to stand up the bottle well in advance and have seen plenty of the debates whether to decant or not decant wines. Just curious if there is an obvious reason to go for a 6 hour decant of a 65 year old wine that I am missing.
Thanks in advance. I’ll be sure to post how it drinks although that may be tomorrow once I recover from the dinner
Remarkably, many of these wines are dramatically better after 4-5-6 hours of air. Wines like this that I read about that are deemed “faded” or “past their prime” I really wonder about–were they never given a chance? personally I open well ahead–if the wine is already showing well, I cap it off. Most of the time it is asleep, and benefits from a long bit of airtime.
Personally I would NOT decant for 6 full hours, rather open it 5-6 h in advance, let it “breath” and decant for maybe 30 min. to an hour.
We had a discussion here some time ago about slow-oxing - and Francois Audouze meant that it´s not so much about getting oxygen INTO the bottle, but rather to get some “bad odours” OUT of it. I´m more and more convinced that´s (partly) true.
ANd … I´m absolutely no fan of double-decanting …
I open most of my wines 8-12 hours before I am planning on drinking them, pour a small amount and make a judgement call on how much air the wine needs.
