On one of the wine blogs I enjoy reading, the wine guy says he likes to decant a bottle of wine in the morning and think all day about the perfect meal to prepare with it that evening. It seems he thinks all young reds need a few hours to open up.

I was relating this story to a friend of mine and she seemed to think the alcohol would evaporate.

I'm wondering who is right?


Martin

Neither.

First of all, some young reds will simply die. They don't want to be decanted. If he has a really tannic big wine that shouldn't be opened for a number of years, decanting can help it become approachable. If he has a simple young red, he's just going to ruin it. And if he has a good vintage Port that's only 20 or 30 years old, like the one we had last week, it can be and was decanted all day long. It's silly for the blogger to make a blanket statement about decanting, if in fact he did.

The alcohol won't evaporate for a long time. A day or even a week isn't going to be long enough under most circumstances.

What Greg said.