Williams Kelly and I have discussed initiating this thread in order to address the subject. Hopefully, it will stimulate not only some personal and technical discussions, but lead to some experimental actions as well.
Over the years, there have been a few mentions on WineBerserkers about decanting champagne with varying opinions about doing so or not.
Many of us are aware of benefits in decanting many still wines, but what about champagne {excluding older bottles of each}?
One of the basic considerations about decanting champagne has to do with the influence on the bubbles that come from the second fermentation. Many of us are aware that this effervescence is critical to imparting the flavor profile as the C02 bubbles burst and impart the aromas into our olfactory and taste preceptors. Does this then suggest, it would be detrimental to the experience to decant and lose some of the nuances or enough to make a difference?
Would the wine be as viable and expressive after opening and decanting a bottle, drinking some and capping it for another day?
I understand there are other factors that come into play such as the stemware and its shape and the presence or absence of etchings that provide artificial nucleation sites {such as Riedel did with their Sommelier champagne flutes many years ago} and so much more. So, decanting is really only one of the considerations, but still one.
These are just a couple of the questions that come up and now let’s explore. What’s been your experience and why do you think that occurred and what can be done to quantify it?
I frequently decant young champagne. Chef buddy of mine laughs and calls me a non-bubbly bubbly drinker. I do like Champagne (and bubbles) but many times it is too effervescent for me in its youth and I don’t have the years of Champagne accumulation or bank account to frequently drink older Champagne.
Personally, I would not decant Champagne, ever. I find that over the course of enjoying the glass and bottle even the bubblier Champagnes tend to settle down naturally if they’re a little aggressive. You can give the wine time for the bubbles to relax; you can’t get them back. I don’t like flat Champagne - I enjoy the freshness and vibrancy of the bubbles. It’s why I drink it!
if there’s a concern regarding loss of bubbles while decanting then best to have the sparkler very cold. Cold liquids hold more dissolved gas.
BTW - I’ve left open, uncorked, sparklers in the refrigerator overnight and the wine still had bubbles the next morning. If you put a stopper in it then you’re guaranteed to have them. I’ve also poured champagne straight from a just opened bottle into a glass and within a few minutes it was basically still.
One key for me is to keep it cold. That usually means keeping the decanter in the refrigerator for some of the time it’s in use. That way, the wine will stay plenty fizzy for hours. I think anything that will be kept until the next day is best left in the bottle and capped. Young Champagne is almost always too bubbly for me to really enjoy or even discern all of the aromas and flavors, so reducing the pressure a bit, while keeping some, can be ideal for me. There seems to be a common assumption in these threads that decanted Champagne will quickly lose all or most of its bubbles. That is far from my experience.
Also, the temperature is a big factor in the flavor profile and perception. Cold sparklers really show the acid and suppress the ability to taste the fruit. You’ll get much more lemon/lime/citrus/salty and angular mouthfeel. As the wine warms the body becomes fuller and the fruit and sweetness become more prevalent. Interestingly a 100% Pinot Noir might show that lemon note and lead you to believe it’s a Blanc de Blanc. Wait 10 minutes and the red berry starts showing as it warms.
Did the wine actually change or just our perception of the wine?
It’s probably a combination of getting some air and definitely the impact of temperature on the taste buds.
Alright! We’ve gotten some engaging comments going and I look forward to more.
Obviously, there are lots of factors to consider such as the temperature component alluded to above. And it goes o and on including the age of the wine, the type and leggy of fermentation, the dosage, if any, the disgorgement and more.
One easy home experiment would be to pour some fresh champagne into a glass and pour some of the same, but decanted, into another glass and track them over time.
I have an idea that when William and Brad and others chime in here, well get some more to think about and consider.
Here’s a few excepts from it from different people:
“I decided to decant the Ulysse Collin because I saw Rob Pavlovich decanted this exact wine recently on his IG. This was the first time I’ve decanted a champagne and I believe this wine benefited from it.”
“Did you try it before? Not something I have ever felt impelled to do, especially for Les Maillons which, being Pinot Noir, is the most fragile of Collin’s wines.”
In response to the question to William if he ever decants champagne: "You know, I confess that I don’t.
I do think that, between crown caps and increasing use of technical closures, contemporary Champagne can be too frothy: making it the old fashioned way, you start with six bars and you might end up at five or four and a half; with modern crown caps and technical closures and disgorgement practices you keep a lot more. So I can understand why one might want to give a Champagne a quick decant just to de-gas it a bit. Similarly to open up a tight young wine. But you clearly loose things in decanting Champagne for whatever you gain, so I would prefer just to cellar such wines for a few more years."
I agree with others – young Champagne is often too effervescent or more effervescent than it needs to be, so I’m not concerned about that when decanting. Also, I think there’s so much more to great Champagne than the bubbles, and I’m more concerned with the wine showing well /opening up than having the full amount of bubbles.
A little thread drift, but since people have brought up the strength of the bubbles, does anyone know of producers other than Roger Coulon that bottle their Champagne with less atmospheres?
Champagne is never too effervescent for me. I never decant, any more than I’d order a vindaloo “but no spice please.” If I didn’t like the bubbles, I’d open a burgundy.
While it seems incorrect-bordering-on-bizarre to try to de-bubble champagne, I am 100% in the let a thousand flowers bloom camp. Knock yourself out with that.
Decanting is not an either/or proposition. You can order your vindaloo “mild” or “medium.” Same with decanting … it’s rarely designed to “debubble” a wine.
Personally, I’m to lazy to decant Champagne. But I remember when a Somm pre-decanted a bottle of Egly at Melisse one night and being pleasantly surprised. It mellowed the wine and brought out some ginger notes I don’t normally associate with Egly’s NV bottling.
Not really. I agree I made the choice binary, when it isn’t. But I would not order a vidaloo mild because a vidaloo isn’t supposed to be mild; the fire is part of the point of the dish (just as bubbles are, to me, an essential component of what a champagne is). If I wanted mild, I’d order mushy peas on toast.
I very much like the effervescence of champagne, so I avoid decanting.
Though with tight champagnes I do leave it open in the fridge uncovered. I find that the petillance keeps pretty well, even over night. That said, I recently acquired the Grassl carafe and that seems like a good vessel to experiment decanting into to limit surface area for the bubbles to escape.