Why decant old wines?

Not fully understood this, if I’m honest. It seems like the older a wine is, the longer it gets decanted for some reason. This is counter-intuitive. What tends to integrate with age are tannins, acid stays pretty much the same and fruit goes away. Seems like a decant will speed up the oxidization and reduce the fruit notes and freshness, the two things you don’t want to lose in an old wine - so why do it?

I’m sure that it will be said that traditionally, to separate sediment. But careful pouring can accomplish the same thing. As it’s been said here many times: old Nebbiolo can really benefit from a lot of aeration. Old Burgundy, maybe not so much.

I cant explain the science, but I can say with 100% certainty that SOME older wines certainly benefit from at least a couple of hours of decanting. Some wines taste like thin stripped out husks when tasted from a just opened bottle and bloom into complete wines with decanting (and some tip over). Bottle prep and decanting time for a particular wine is usually knowledge I try to learn from the first bottle of the batch.

Curious as to what you look for in a younger wine that helps inform the decanting decision of that wine in say 20-30 years later?

Hi rodrigo,
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I meant the first bottle of a batch of older wine. If you only have one bottle and no experience with the wine then it can get a bit tricky.

That makes much more sense. I was scrambling my brain trying to think of how someone could foresee the decanting times of an older wine from having tasted it when younger.

old barolo/barbaresco requires many hours of air to wake up - like 8-10 hours. i have no idea why.

Even if your question was based on a misunderstanding… I’d say acid. In my experience, the wines that often/sometimes benefit most from extended decanting are Barolo/Barbaresco, red Burgundy and Northern Rhones. But I’ve also had mature white Burgundies that benefited from it.

Interesting. Is it just a question of high acid in a wine? I usually look for it as a component in younger wines as part of its structure and ageing potential, but never made the connection with that and decant times.

I’ve had a few older barolos from the 60s and 70s that had the acid, but did not benefit from decating. In those cases, they were surprisingly very acidic, but ultimately with little to no fruit left and felt incredibly disjointed. I decanted them and tracked them over several hours, but in those cases time didn’t seem to help and they actually seemed to degrade with time. Not sure if those should have gone even longer?

2 quick thoughts: 1) I would think that a quick decant to remove the sediment is a must for thick-skinned varietals. 2) Some wines (SQN is a great example) have some bottle funk that completely blows off with a quick decant.

In general, I would not think that most older wines need a LONG decant, but many will improve with a short one. Those with big tannins (e.g. old-style Barolo and First-Growth Bordeaux) may take more time, but you can figure out the wine is still closed with a quick taste when first opened.

Sediment.

There are lots of old Barolos and Barbarescos floating around that are long past their sell-by date. It won’t help to decant those six hours. But it always pays to taste a little and get a sense for their freshness. They can often seem dried out and show madeirized scents at first, only to have the tires smells blow off and the fruit flesh out. It’s a bit of a crap shoot, but with experience I think one can make an educated guess when they’re first opened. It will be a guess, though.

My thought about acidity is just a hunch. But those three categories do share that, and they often become richer aromatically and fuller bodied with air. When they’re not tired and over the hill, that is.

Agreed, there’s definetly a wide range of quality for old Barolos. And experience with a particular wine type, style of wine or producer definitely helps in gauging how long to decant. I haven’t drank that much of older barolos to have any significant sample size to get a sense for how long I should decant them for. Just never thought to use acidity as a barometer for how long to decant for. Certainly something to keep in mind going forward.

How well a bottle has been stored and how well a cork has done its job probably have an impact as well. It seems to me that a perfectly stored bottle may be a little reductive and would benefit from a couple hours to “wake up”. On the other hand, a bottle that has had a little more exposure to oxygen over its life may actually be ruined by too much air. So I think it depends on the wine and the bottle. I usually try to check out tasting notes here or on CT to give me a bit of a guide and then feel it out.

Those three categories often seem to open up with air. I’m not at all sure that acidity is the explanation. But they vary in many other ways (color, type of sediment, alcohol, flavor profile). But they do share the trait of being relatively high acid (at least as perceived). And I’ve wondered if that doesn’t have something to do with why they can be slow to release their full array of aromas – slower than, say, Bordeaux or many other wines.

Not really.

If you open the bottle of an aged wine well in advance - and only decant softly after several hours the wine can not only stand the oxidation better but also will show more fruit and less acidity (provided it is still sound).

Many wines are much better after several hours in an open bottle, and the decanting adds a little positive edge to it (and removes the sediment of course).

What is not so good imho is decanting immediately after opening.

And yet Maria Teresa Mascarello, who knows more about Barolo than just about anyone you will meet, is firmly opposed to decanting old wine… of any sort. “Decanting an older or old vintage is traumatic for the wine. It’s like violently shaking an eighty-five year old person—it’s harmful, and maybe even life-threatening.” So, there you are.

Seems from my experience (and I’m talking about wines older than 25 yrs of age), the older the wine, the quicker they deteriorate with air.

And lots of winemakers and winery owners prefer their wines much younger than many of their customers. I don’t think they deserve the last word.

Mostly, but not nebbiolo. It’s the opposite for some reason. Young ones often shut down with air, old ones open up.