How and When to Aerate Wine

Its important to let wine breathe if you want to taste it as its best. And if you truly want your wine to have suerior taste, you'll want to decant it as well in order to maximize aeration and get rid of the sediments. A decanter will also be very helpful for bringing the wine up to its ideal drinking temperature.



The first thing to know about aerating wine (aka "letting it breathe") is that few white wines benefit from it at all. That is because most white wines are pretty low in tannins, and tannins are the main reason you have to aerate wine at all. Tannins are compounds found in grape stems, skins and seeds. They have astringent qualities, and they are responsible for a lot of the taste in wine, specifically the wine's texture, "backbone" and flavor.

Red wines have much more tannins than white wines. In young red wines the tannins can be quite sharp, or "harsh" (if you want to sound like an oenophile), and so it is the tannins that are also the reason, or one of the reasons, why wines are aged. Over time, the tannins mellow and work with the other flavors and compounds in the wine to create the result we all crave. Examples of red wines with potentially high tannin levels (that will benefit from aeration) include Cabernet Sauvignons, Syrah based wines, older ports, Bararescos and Bordeaux. Even a white Bordeaux would benefit from a bit of breathing, as would a full-bodied white Burgundy.

Now that you know why to aerate wine, here's how. Simply popping the cork and letting the wine sit for 20 minutes is better than nothing, but it is not really good enough. What you need is a decanter, or any large beverage container -- the more surface area you can get, the better. That is why true wine aerators or decanters are very wide, with amply-sized openings for pouring. You want as much oxygen to reach the wine as possible (but no, do not try to carbonate your wine, please). As the oxygen reaches the compounds in the wine, and as the temperature rises to about 60 degrees or so (the ideal temperature for drinking red wine), the flavors in the wine will open, soften, and become more complex. So if you have a wine that seems sharp upon first taste, consider letting it breathe a bit longer, and consider decanting it (or decanting it again if necessary).

Decanters typically come in 60 or 88 ounces. Amazon has several nice decanters, starting at $25 and going to $38 for the nicest one you could reasonably need. Of course, as with anything, if you want to spend hundreds of dollars on a decanter, you can do that, too.