This comment:"I personally find decanting, vigorous or otherwise, generally unnecessary"...in our most recent commentary, sparked a fair amount of correspondence, and a comment from Ned.
So allow me to qualify my meaning.
I don't drink much 30 year old Claret. I do drink a fair amount of Champagne. I tend to drink more white wine than red. This is because I tend to eat more fish and chicken than beef and wild game. So for me, decanting is generally unnecessary. I suspect, gentle reader, that you were looking for something with more implied controversy.
Something like: I think decanting is largely a showy bit of theater that doesn't improve a wine to any greater degree than just opening it, pouring off a taste and letting it sit.
As it happens, I think that's true as well.
Generally.
Blender results up next.
3 comments:
"decanting is largely a showy bit of theater that doesn't improve a wine to any greater degree than just opening it, pouring off a taste and lettiag it sit."
Ah, OK.
Decanting, pouring, whatever... the wines need a little air and a little time to reveal or display their true selves. It sounds like decanting has for you a specific definition that carries with it certain pretensions etc. Actually, the primary definition of decanting is the process of pouring a settled wine off its sediment. I'm all for that. Other than that, the vigorous thing is about speeding up the aeration of young big reds, in my experience anyway. I guess there have been situations where this came across as unnecessarily geeky but its not without a reasonable basis. Memo to geeks, don't obsess or fetishize, keep enjoyment primary.
so agreed that decanting is way overrated. there are a few tech reasons for doing it but not many... btw, I like both decanters in the pic and I pose to you the conundrum: do you drink more white wine because you eat more fish and chicken or do you eat more fish and chicken because you drink more white wine? which came first, the chicken or the white?
Ned,
As I said, I don't drink a lot of old Bordeaux. Still, I am generally not in favor of drinking sediment. So it's a fair point.
DB,
Good question. I'm an avid Chenin drinker, love bubbles and have been drinking a fair amount of Riesling lately. So it might be the wine is driving the menu. Hard to say with precision... Might also have something to do with the weather in Southern California.
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