Ahh yes the cool glass shaped vase that for some reason you put wine in? Seems kinda weird, don’t you just drink it from the bottle?
HA! Well sometimes!
But decanting a wine is very important and often is necessary for a few reasons:
1) The bottle needs to be aerated. Some wines have been locked up in a bottle for a long period of time and can change the way a wine tastes. Oxygen helps to open up the wine. I’m sure you’ve heard people say:
“allow the wine to breathe a little.”
What these guys are saying is that the wine is a living a breathing thing. It’s constantly changing, and it sometimes needs to see a little oxygen to bring forward flavors that are underneath. This can also help young wines mature faster. Many older wines see some oxygen, but young wines, not so much! So it works for young and old.
2) To decant a wine off its sediment.
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Sediment is the composition of barrel, grape, leaf etc. fragments that end up in the wine. It’s definitely not a bad thing, it just doesn’t taste so good to have them in your mouth.
Sediment is naturally occurring in many red wines, young and old, but mostly old.
When you decant a bottle properly, you will use a light source to see through the bottle to find where the sediment begins to get trapped after pouring the wine into the decanter. Make sure to properly stop the wine before getting sediment into the decanter.
If you’re worried, you can use a strainer or a cheese cloth to trap those itty bits of sediment.
After decanting the wine, you can drink it without worried about dirtying your glass with sediment.
3) Because it looks cool.
Yes, Somms do silly tricks sometimes to seem cool. Honestly, this amazing Home Euphoria 1.5L decanter is beautiful and will look very rad on your bar. Pick a fancy bottle for the evening and decant the wine so it sits on the table. Why not?!
And don’t forget to properly clean your decanter. Be careful because they’re very fragile. Use hot water to soak in the decanter and to scrub them out, you can use a foam brush like the one provided by Home Euphoria or you can pick one up at your local store.
Hope this helps give you information and allows you to enjoy a decanted bottle of wine!
Cheers!
Amanda