Breathe, damnit! A wine question

[Necros]

What's the deal with allowing wine to "breathe" after you open it? I've been wrestling with this for a while, and can't find a definitive answer. The best ideas I can come up with are, I think, pretty poor:
1. To allow the escape of any excess sulphur dioxide that may remain in the bottle.
2. To allow further conversion of malic acid to lactic acid, thus softening some of the acidic taste.
Any other ideas? Or, even better, the Straight Dope?

[handy]

depends. Some wines aren't finished fermenting & letting in some air completes the process.

[Yarster]

As I recall, it's only the red wines that are supposed to 'breathe' and I always thought it was because the better ones had a minute amount of some solute in the bottle (though I don't claim to know what is it.) When you pour the wine, or wrestle with the bottle to open it, you shake every thing up, and letting it breathe really only gives everything a chance to settle.

Of course, a real wine drinker will be along in a minute to actually answer this question correctly...

[epeepunk]

I'm not sure about the breathing part, something about getting oxygen back into the wine (WAG) but I've been told to shake the bottle after opening to release the sulfites. That's right, shake it till its foamy (with your thumb over the opening). Then you can do the breathing thing. I've seen a funnel device for accelerating the breathing that makes a "bulb" of wine as you pour it - exposing more wine to the air. That makes me think its something you want to do.

Where are the snooty wine people when you *need* them.

[Necros]

epeepunk said:

Where are the snooty wine people when you *need* them.


I am a snooty wine person. And I don't know. And I've spoken to other snooty wine people who don't know.
So, I guess the moral of this story is that all the snooty wine people are pretending: They don't really know anything about wine. :)

[RealityChuck]

I don't know the chemistry involved, but the purpose of letting wine breathe is to make it less harsh. A lot of red wines have a high tannin content which can make them taste harsh -- sort of a biting aftertaste. Leaving them open to breathe (or decanting the wine, which does the same thing more quickly), mixes oxygen with the wine and reduces the harsh flavor.

Try it yourself. Get a Cabernet and take a glass. Then leave the wine open on the counter a day or two. Try it again. It should be smoother. (I once was given a cheap table wine that I did this by accident. After a few days it was delicious.)

[RealityChuck]

I'm not sure about the breathing part, something about getting oxygen back into the wine (WAG) but I've been told to shake the bottle after opening to release the sulfites. That's right, shake it till its foamy (with your thumb over the opening).

Gaak! No. Never (especially not with a red wine). Red wine throws off sediment, which tastes terrible. If you shake it, the sediment is mixed throughout the wine. The best way to serve a red wine is to move it very carefully and decant it so that the sediment stays in the bottle.

Decanting, BTW, is pouring the wine from one bottle to another. Traditionally, it's done in front of a candle so that you can see the flakes of sediment before they go into the new bottle.

White wines don't need decanting because they don't produce the sediment. I suppose they might have more sulfites, but I doubt shaking the wine would get rid of those. Your friend was pulling your leg.

Most of the "rules" for drinking wine are not a matter of snootiness, but ways to serve it so it tastes best.

[Necros]

RealityChuck said:

Let it breathe because it tastes better when you do! (paraphrased)


I probably should have phrased my question more specifically. I mean, I know that it tastes better when you do it. But I was really interested in why. What chemical reactions take place inside the wine that make it taste better uopn mixture with the air?

And then said:

A lot of red wines have a high tannin content which can make them taste harsh -- sort of a biting aftertaste.


True, but tannins mainly come from one of three sources: Either the grape itself, the cask it was stored in, or inadvetant stems in the pressing. Most of the time, the level of tannins is an intentional thing. And, as far as I know, tannins don't really affect the chemisty of the wine, just the taste. So how would mixture with oxygen lessen their effect?

And then said:

Red wine throws off sediment, which tastes terrible. If you shake it, the sediment is mixed throughout the wine. The best way to serve a red wine is to move it very carefully and decant it so that the sediment stays in the bottle.


I think you might be overstating the sediment factor. I mean, anybody who walks around, shaking up a bottle of red wine with their thumb over the opening probably isn't going to be drinking something that's been around long enough for the sediment to settle to a sufficient extent, and mess with the flavor.

But I admit it does make for an amusing image...
"Mmm. This 1964 Medoc is georgeously full and ripe, with excellent legs. Waiter, you may shake the bottle now." :)

[hawthorne]

Two different things are being mentioned here:

Decanting wine is a good idea to get rid of sediment. A big aged red wine will have lots of gungey crustiness in it. You should pour a wine of this type gently into a decanter or other non-reactive vessel to separate the sediment from the wine. You can rinse the bottle and pour it back in if you like.

Old reds do not need to breathe. Decanting should release and dispel any unpleasant odours. If it smells bad after five minutes, it's off, or past its best.

Young reds can benefit by being allowed to breathe. Part of ageing is gradual oxidation. Young reds' flavour can develop with a few hours exposure to air. This is a matter of taste. If you are eating game, a serious tannic attack can be just what you are after.

As a rule, try this: see how your favourite red tastes the next evening, having left say a third of the bottle with the cork in. If it tastes better than when you opened it, next time open the bottle a couple of hours prior to drinking. If it doesn't, don't.

Generally, wine that says "age for five+ years" (any Penfolds wine) will benefit from breathing. Wine that says "drink now" won't. Get good glasses and hop into it.

picmr

[Necros]

picmr said:

Young reds can benefit by being allowed to breathe. Part of ageing is gradual oxidation. Young reds' flavour can develop with a few hours exposure to air.


OK, increasing oxidation at the very seems mildly reasonable to me (although I have some suspicions that aging and oxidation are supposed to go hand in hand. For all intents and purposes, oxidation is something you don't want in wine, right? The entire reaction is based on anaerobic situations, I believe). But it doesn't seem go along with the basic idea of keeping wine away from air. Isn't that's why they sell me those little Vac-U-Vin stoppers and pump?


And then:

As a rule, try this: see how your favourite red tastes the next evening, having left say a third of the bottle with the cork in. If it tastes better than when you opened it, next time open the bottle a couple of hours prior to drinking. If it doesn't, don't.


So it's based on each individual wine? That doesn't seem right. Why, then, would the general rule of thumb be to let a wine breathe, if only some need it?

[manhattan]

Because it never hurts, and sometimes helps. Also, the type of person (me, for example) who actually lets the stuff breathe is also the type to buy the aged wines that benefit best.

Basically, one lets a wine breath to let oxygen in and carbon dioxide out. Letting a wine breath in the bottle does essentially nothing for it. Leave it in a glass with a nice wide mouth or (better) decant it. Here's (http://63.97.40.4/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=9043) an old thread on the subject back from when I actually had time to help answer questions in this forum, as opposed to just moving threads.

[handy]

No, I think he was talking about boxed wine, you do need to let it complete fermenting.

[chique]

Sorry, I'm on my way out the door and don't have time to search right now, but I just read something about this.

Check out one of the following - the wine columns in one or both of these papers just did a quite thorough job of explaining what to let breathe when.

http://www.startribune.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com

[Max Torque]

I'd just like to mention that there's a lot of nifty wine-related info at one of my favorite sites, Learn2 (http://www.learn2.com). Learn2 is chock-full of "2torials" about lotsa stuff you might not even know how to ASK to do. Their perpetual #1 most-accessed 2torial: Learn2 Tie A Necktie (http://www.learn2.com/05/0537/0537.php3).

Some of their wine 2torials:

Learn2 Choose Wine (http://www.learn2.com/05/0584/0584.php3)
Learn2 Speak Wine (http://www.learn2.com/05/0585/0585.php3)
Learn2 Open & Serve Wine & Champagne (http://www.learn2.com/05/0587/0587.php3)

[KP]

I thought you might enjoy this NPR segment available through RealAudio:
LET IT BREATHE (http://npr.org/ramfiles/sls/19981226.sls.05.ram): A scientific spat over wine has led to a new revelation--simply uncorking red wine does not help it breathe. You must decant the wine or swirl it in a glass to expose it more fully to oxygen. Ira talks to Dr. Nirmal Charan, who won the argument by doing an experiment.

[Cervaise]

I was gonna whip out one of the old wine books and provide a definitive cite, but guess what: Nobody says, in detail, exactly "why" the wine should be aerated (wine geek talk for "letting it breathe"), i.e. what it does chemically.

From Wine for Dummies, page 97:

Should the wine "breathe"? If a red wine you ordered seems to need aeration to soften its harsh tannins (see Chapter 8), merely pulling the cork will be practically useless in accomplishing that (the air space at the neck of the bottle is too small). Decanting the bottle or pouring the wine into glasses is the best tactic.

So that jives with the previous post, about how much air is actually required to do the trick. I followed the "see..." reference to the next chapter, where I found:

Does Wine Really Breathe? [plus "snob alert" icon in margin]

Most wine is alive in the sense that it changes chemically as it slowly grows older. Wine absorbs oxygen and, like our own cells, it oxidizes. When the grapes turn into wine in the first place, they give off carbon dioxide, just like us. So we suppose you could say that wine breathes, in a sense.

But that's not what the server means when he asks, "Shall I pull the cork and let the wine breathe, sir (or madam)?" The term breathing usually refers to the process of aerating the wine, exposing it to air. Sometimes a wine that is very young will display an enhanced aroma or flavor if it is aerated. But just pulling the cork out of the bottle...

And blah blah blah, more on how the space at the top of the bottle isn't sufficient; you've got to decant it. (Page 108.) There follows a series of instructions on how to perform the aeration, step by step; pouring into the decanter or glasses, the kinds of decanter or glasses you should look for, etc.

Then there's another section: Which wines need aerating? This looks promising, starting off:

Many red wines but only a few white wines -- and some dessert wines -- can benefit from aeration.

And in a section entitled Young, tannic red wines, the authors state:

Young red wines, especially those that are high in tannin..., actually taste better with aeration because their tannins soften and the wine becomes less harsh.

The younger and more tannic the wine is, the more time it needs to breathe. As a general rule, most tannic, young wines soften up with one hour of aeration. A glaring exception...

And so on, more practical advice without any chemical background. There's also a discussion of sediment, and how to deal with it while decanting. Then there's this (page 110):

The older the wine, the more delicate it can be. Don't give old, fragile-looking wines excessive aeration. ... The flavors of really old wines will start fading rapidly after 10 or 15 minutes of being exposed to air.

...Followed by a cute reference to Lost Horizon.

By the way, for anyone following this, here's what they have to say in the glossary about tannin, which seems to be the chemical key of the whole thing, the justification for aeration:

tannin: A substance in the skins, stems, and seeds of grapes; a principal component of red wines, which -- unlike white wines -- are made using the grape skins. Tannin also is a component of oak barrels.

So, there you go. A whole lot of practical know-how, but nothing on the chemical how-do-you-do. I suppose that's what we should come to expect from the general literature, but you know, Cecil and his minions spoil us badly...

[Juniper]

Everyone got off on the "shaking" tangent so quickly that I almost forgot something else I wanted to mention.

"I've seen a funnel device for accelerating the breathing that makes a "bulb" of wine as you pour it - exposing more wine to the air."

If this is referring to a strainer, which often looks like a funnel, it is for removing the sediment while decanting. I don't think it serves any aerating function. Forget the wine snobs - we need an oenologist or a chemist. I thought I knew all about decanting, but now I've seen "decant old wines, not young ones" and "decant young wines, not old ones." But since I prefer the young "fruit bombs" right out of the bottle, I don't care if I'm confused.

In vino, veritas.