Wondering how many of you use the Audouze method of slow oxygenation for older wines and what your results might be. I have trouble wrapping my head around how this could possibly make an appreciable difference, but that being said, I haven’t experimented with it much myself.
Remembering back to my P-Chem college days, passive diffusion in water at room temperature is very slow without physical agitation. This, along with the relatively small surface area of wine exposed to air in the neck/shoulder of an open bottle, would seem that the Audoze method would result in very little oxygenation happening at all, even over many hours. This whole explanation of “the wine has been bottled up for so long and needs a chance to ‘stretch its legs’” or whatever metaphors are used, seems to be pointless anthropomorphizing that distracts from whatever actual chemistry may or may not be happening.
Going with my chemistry intuition, if the Audoze method actually makes a difference, it likely has more to do with unpleasant volatile compounds leaving the wine rather than oxygen entering. But I’m wiling to be corrected if anyone has more detailed knowledge than I do. Also, does the Audoze method work in improving the drinking experience? Has anyone here made a study of it beyond simple anecdote?
You don’t even need some big study. Next few older bottles you open, try it. Try the first ounce or two of the wine, then let it slow O for the rest of the afternoon, and see if it changes and gets better.
If your hunch is correct and it doesn’t change any, you haven’t lost anything.
There have been many discussions here, but searching for them isn’t yielding much. Summary: science-y folks are in the ‘it does nothing’ camp. Other opinions are of the ‘it works for me’ type. Francois Audoze himself swears by it for very old (say, 40+ years) bottles, and has had a lot of thoughtful experience.
Personally I think it does little or nothing, except perhaps for some delicate ancient wines that need to vent some off aromas. So, I don’t do it. Instead I pop & pour or decant for a few hours depending on the bottle. Decanting gently to get rid of sediment is the most important thing to do for older bottles IMHO.
Francois never contended that it oxygenated the wine. As you both say, he recommends it simply to let some volatile scents evaporate off.
Alan Rath gave detailed info in another thread about how there is virtually no oxygen penetration into the surface of a wine sitting still (i.e., not decanted).
Moreover, Francois does this when the wine is too fragile to safely decant. I.e., oxygenation would be dangerous.
Over time, though, people here have forgotten the context in which Francois mentioned his technique and have used it with much younger wine, where I’d guess it really is pointless unless there is a bit of funk.
I don’t do it. But I don’t consider letting a bottle blow off some funky volatile aromas for the first 15-60 minutes to be the Audouze method, which is more about hours of air for older wines as John mentioned.
For example, all still wines from 42 to 68 years old at our lunch Sunday were decanted in advance for at least a couple hours, some longer. Red Bordeaux, Riesling, Chenin.
On multiple occasions I’ve seen a several hour slow-ox transform a tough, undrinkable, just-released wine to something sublime. The example that most stands out in my mind was my first experience with Allemand, a just-released 2010 Chaillots…tannic and thin on opening, structured but fully-open after 4-5 hours. Of course there’s some sort of voodoo going on; I’ve also witnessed this with bottles opened the day after crossing the country that were wide-open, only to watch them shut down after setting down a few weeks; apparently no oxygen involved in that case as well.
Actually, in a long thread, sometime back, Francois Audouze absolutely did claim that oxygenation had something to do with it and when various people with scientific backgrounds stated that it was impossible, he stoutly claimed that he had forty years of experimental knowledge to prove that it worked. My memory is that Alan Rath suggested that his experience may have had to do with volatile scents blowing off. That would happen, as I understand after a quarter of an hour or so and would hardly need the long periods Audouze recommends.
I should say that Emmanuel Reynaud routinely recommends 24 hour airings for his wines. He does suggest pouring out a glass first. I don’t know how much that changes the oxygenation process, but I can also attest that even six hours affects the wine.
You might be right about Francois’s claims about the chemistry. If so, he seems plainly wrong. But his empirical observations might nonetheless be correct.
In the department of anecdotal observations… I opened a 1997 Rocca di Fabbri Sagrantino on Sunday and it seemed kind of nasty when I poured a small sample after pulling the cork, a bit volatile and tannic. I left it standing up, figuring I might end up tossing it. A couple of hours later, it had come together. I decanted it and it showed well over several hours.
If you’re pouring out 1-2 oz then there will almost certainly be at least a little oxygenation. Hence the term slow ox, its not “no ox”. I definitely see wines change this way, albeit much more slowly. I would say somewhere in the range of 5x to 10x as slow as in a decanter. Ie, 5-10 hours of slo ox equals 1 hour in decanter.
I do slow-ox wines that are 50+ years old unless I know that they’re pretty hearty and can take decanting. So I don’t do it with Port or with strong Bordeaux vintages. However, when I get to wines that are 70+ years old, I always slow-ox. That doesn’t mean that I won’t also decant, but in that instance, I’ll decant right before service just to get rid of sediment.
Personally, I think it is silly. As the OP pointed out, chemically, there is almost nothing taking place to spark a reaction as very little air has been introduced and the molecular structure of the wine has not moved enough to generate real change.
This was the subject of one of the most contentious threads the forum has ever seen in which literally hundreds and hundreds of comments were issued. I personally had fun with it, but it cost me billable hours which equates to very real money. If you’d like to trudge through it, be my guest. Should be some fun back and forths between me and Francois and Mr. Loesberg above.
At the end of the day, I think it’s total bullshit entirely unfounded in any science. The “let something blow off” theory would similarly apply to a pop and pour, a technique much derided by the mis-named “slow-ox” crew. But the opposition is fierce, if lacking anything other than obviously biased anecdotal support for their position.
I don’t know jack about what science might be involved. But I know for a fact that the results are not “bullshit” given the many, many very old bottles I opened that had a weird funk that blew off over time, when I’ve heard of those same wines being dumped down the drain by those that just pop and pour. But you do you and I’ll do me. Via con Dios.
To all the “it doesn’t oxygenate the wine at all” comments, are you saying you could pull the cork of a bottle then let it sit on the counter for weeks and it would be unchanged? I find that very hard to imagine. And then if you add that you’ve poured off an ounce or two, it seems even harder to imagine.
It seems that, as a matter of chemistry, if you just pull the cork, there is essentially no oxygen interchange. Oxygen doesn’t enter the liquid, and there is a tiny surface area.
Pouring a small quantity probably introduces a little oxygen because some air enters the bottle and the wine is disturbed, but not that much. Returning the bottle to the upright position with wine still at least up to the shoulder means there’s essentially no oxygenation after that point. (Paging Alan Rath!)
So you’d be comfortable opening a wine that’s in its maturity window, pouring off two ounces, and letting it sit on the counter upright with no cork for weeks? You don’t feel like the wine will advance and eventually go downhill doing that?