I am wondering if anyone has preferences between these two techniques (by decant I mean just pouring the wine straight to decanter, and by double-decant I mean into a container then right back into the bottle). Do you prefer one over the other, and why? Or do you use one in some circumstances but the other technique other times? How long in advance, and does this vary depending on the technique? Just interested in everyone’s practices, and of course in making my wines taste their best.
I think this depends on the specific wine itself. For example, you probably wouldn’t want to double decant a 1961 Latour, but for a 2004 Latour, double decanting wouldn’t be a bad idea. For young wines, I usually decant 2-3 hours prior going to dinner and right before I head out the door, I pour it back into the bottle. In a way, that’s a double decant and you’re giving it a “double dose” of oxygen, but at the same time, it is slowly being “aired” as it sits in the decanter for 2-3 hours. I’ve recently used this technique for the 1996 Leoville Poyferre, 2000 Malescot St Exupery, 2003 Langoa Barton and 2004 Leoville Barton. All turned out fantastic throughout dinner. Hope this helps!
-James
I double decant almost all of my Bordeaux that is under 10 years old. I feel that it allows the wines to open up at a pace that I’m comfortable with in terms of calibrating where I want the wine to be at during service. I also find (completely anecdotally) that aromatics are more delicate when double decanted rather than straight decanted while retaining “freshness” whatever that is.
For young chateaneuf I prefer to Audouze for extended periods of time. Same for Burgundy (usually much less time).
I decant older wines for sediment separation and younger non-Burg reds for aeration. Like Faryan, I usually do a brief “Audouze” oxygenation for younger Burgs. The only time I double decant is for practical purposes, when bringing an older bottle to a tasting so not to stir it up too much on the drive over.
I don’t have a lot of experience with really old wines, but I have had a lot of success with double decanting young wines (newly released up to about 5 years from vintage) anywhere from 4-12 hours prior to drinking…the time depending on the kind of wine and it’s age. Bigger and younger = more time. Anything older than that and I take a small taste a few hours prior and then determine what to do. Almost everything gets decanted or double decanted at some point if for no other reason than to get rid of sediment.
The only logical reason I double-decant is if I want to serve the wine from the bottle rather than from the decanter. Which typically means I’m taking it to a tasting or to a restaurant. Otherwise I’ll serve it from the decanter.
At a wine dinner Jean-Michel Cazes said that once you pour the wine from the bottle the mixture of wine & air has taken place. Doing it again doesn’t do anything to the process. The only reason to double decant is to get the wine back in the bottle if you prefer to pour it from a bottle instead of a decanter.
A group of my wine geek friends did an experiment with the same wine (can’t remember what it was, young Cali Cab) tasted blind with one wine being double decanted and one wine being just decanted for one hour. No one at the table could tell the difference…
JD
Back into the bottle if I’m taking the wine away from home.
It’s interesting. The posts by JWei and John Davis seem to suggest that the purpose and effect of double decanting is to increase the amount of oxygen that the wine gets, and that double decanting would be a more aggressive aeration regime (for example, in JWei’s example of a 2004 Latour).
In my mind, it’s the exact opposite. Assuming you aren’t serving the wine right after the decanting, I figure the wine’s ongoing exposure to air is greatly reduced by double decanting as opposed to leaving the wine in the decanter, due to the shape of the decanter versus the shape of a wine bottle.
So, like Faryan, I often double decant for this reason – so that the wine doesn’t risk become tired or flat or losing its aromatics over the course of many hours of the evening sitting in a decanter (unless, of course, it’s a wine that I believe would benefit from many hours in the decanter, which is the case some of the time – for example, a very tannic young cabernet or Bordeaux which I don’t have enough time to wait on for slower oxidation – but not that often to my taste).
I have increasingly become of the camp that thinks that slower and gentler exposure to air is usually better for wine than the high rate from sitting hours in a decanter, in terms of preserving the wine’s aromatics and in terms of avoiding the chance of having it become too aerated (you can always expose wine to more air if needed, but you can never go backwards if the wine has had too much).
Anyways, it’s interesting the opposite ways in which we seem to perceive the question of decanting versus double decanting. I’m certainly open to hearing that I might have this backwards.
Depends on how much time you have…sometimes I use a vinturi if time is of the essence. If you have a few hours, use a classic decanter and move on with your night! I don’t double dip my chips, I don’t double cant my decanter!
-salute
Chris Seiber’s post above brings up another point, which is, what kind of decanter are you using?? When I occasionally decant, I always use a carafe, whose surface area is only slightly larger than a regular bottle. But decanting is rare for me now, as my cellar has a decent supply of reasonably mature Burgs and Bordeaux, and with these I greatly prefer to not decant at all, i.e. the “slow oxygenation” route championed by Monsieur Audouze and his 50 - 100 year old wine treasures. Sometimes, when I am “in a hurry”, I will decant a few ounces off the top of a bottle, then keep both portions in an insulated picnic bag with a small gel-filled “freezer block” inside to keep both cool and at the same temperature. (The larger surface area now in the bottle along with the somewhat smaller volume seems to speed up the “slow-O” process quite a bit). I drink the decanted portion first (after maybe an hour or two) and then proceed to the undecanted portion. With reasonably mature Burgs and Bordeaux it is always the undecanted portion that I prefer. Just pouring these wines introduces a fair amount of oxygen, and they need much less than young tannic wines. The result is that they would become somewhat “blunted” and overly softened with decanting, whereas the undecanted portion that has been open for 4 - 5 hours develops depth as expected, but also retains more freshness, vitality, and complexity.
What is “best” is going to depend a LOT on the style, type, and age of the particular wine, and you just have to experiment!
Ditto.
Also during the summer I find it challenging to keep a decanted wine at the proper temperature as I sip it over the course of an evening after dinner. I like to put it back into the bottle so that I can use freezer-sleeves to manage the temperature more easily than I can with a decanter.
I pop and pour young wines.
When I decant, double decanting is only performed to take wine to a BYO in the bottle.
This is my approach as well.
Cazes point was that once you decant the wine the process, the aeration, has started. Pouring it again won’t speed it up or bring anything to the party.
JD
If I could retort, John, in defense of the double decant, I am under the belief that putting it back in the bottle under a cork instead of under a wide surface area of exposure as in a decanter, will indeed have the same process of oxygenation that occurred when the wine was poured into the decanter and then back into the bottle (damage is done, as you said). However, by “sealing” it back into the bottle, I postulate that less aromatic particles can escape (isn’t that what happens when one smells an opened bottle or a decanter sitting on a counter-top) and less oxygen interaction is taking place. Again, anecdotally, for young wines of a certain breed, I have found more positive results with this method, but haven’t engaged in any scientific verification or experiential controlled experiments.
I was just going to make Faryan’s point.
There really are two issues, I think: (1) mixing air/oxygen into the wine, with whatever chemical reactions that sets off and (2) exposing a significant surface area, which allows volatile elements to evaporate.
If you’ve got aromas you want to blow off (e.g., sulfur), decanting will probably do a better job. But that comes at some risk of losing aromas.
I’m not sure what the oxygenation of double-decanting accomplishes, and it’s not something I practice until Greg dal Piaz used it for Barolo verticals. But those tastings made a convert out of me, at least for nebbiolo. I’ve come to think that for wines that need to be opened ahead, the double decanting (Greg sometimes does it 24 hours ahead) preserves aromas best.
I’m skeptical of this as I’ve definitely noticed differences between wines sitting in a carafe and in a wide bottomed decanter.
One other reason for double decanting not mentioned is if you’re opening a lot of wine and don’t have enough decanters to hold all of them. I did that for a Montevertine dinner I hosted early this year.
Not strictly on topic, but this thread seems like a good place for this. I found a Bdx blog with some interesting statements (that I find largely agreeable) on decanting in general:
decanting bad wine will not improve it – it will still be bad wine
if a wine needs to be decanted for any length of time, it is not ready to drink
some wine will never be ready to drink because it was poorly made to begin with – buy better wine and stop expecting miracles from an $8 bottle
decanting changes the balance of everything – alcohol, tannins, fruit, and acidity, but the outcome is all guesswork. Never expose a good or fine wine to air for long periods of time. As for bad wine, just don’t buy it to begin with because nothing you do is going to improve it
it is impossible to know exactly when a wine will ‘peak’ (reach its optimal flavor and aromatics) while sitting in a decanter – it’s much better to have it peak in your glass as opposed to missing it entirely while it is being ‘decanted’
most people that abuse decanters do so because they are attempting to soften the wine’s harsh or dominant tannins – if a wine is not balanced going in to the bottle, it will not be balanced coming out of the bottle and decanting it just arbitrarily shifts around various components of the wine. Thus if oxygen softens tannins (and it does ultimately), it means that other components have also been affected by oxygen and usually in a detrimental way. For example, the first thing that happens when wine hits the air is that alcohol evaporates; the amount of evaporation is wine temperature dependent amongst other things. And this is not always a bad thing but changing the chemistry of any given wine is like playing the table in Vegas. Usually the house wins.
some people like to use decanters to serve wine, which is perfectly acceptable if the intent is to get it into glasses within a short amount of time
This sounds like a very plausible explanation. Definitely pouring introduces a lot of oxygen, but it’s the surface area of the wine that’s important for loss of volatiles.
I’m of the opinion (see previous post) that if a wine needs that much decanting, it’s just not ready. And aside from that, decanting on auto-pilot presents the possibility you’ll miss the wine opening to its peak. Maybe it’s just the wine I drink, but there seem to be a fair number that open up immediately or soon after decanting. There are also some wines that seem best on the last drop, but I usually feel best after a glass or two, so perhaps that just says the wine never got boring! At any rate, I wouldn’t have noticed if I’d just decanted and walked away for 6 hours.