When you open a bottle of wine, you’re not supposed to pour it into a glass right away, but simply let “breathe”…the opened bottle sits open but undisturbed for a few minutes.
Does this actually change the wine’s taste in any way?
Actually, IME, you’re better off letting the wine breathe in the glass, or, better yet, a decanter. And not all wines benefit from being aerated; young wines often do, but older wines don’t, and not all need to be aerated for the same amount of time. A few minutes in a full bottle won’t really do much, since there isn’t much surface area (or time!) being aerated. Pour a glass, and at the least, what’s left in the bottle will have more exposure to the air.
Does it taste differently? Depends on the wine, but often, I find that it does. Letting the wine breathe seems to remove a…“stuffiness”? to the flavour; the wine tastes smoother. That’s the fun of wine… you can try it and see!
I never let wine breathe on the first glass, but I will leave the bottle uncorked while I drink the first glass. Then, if I have a second glass, I notice it usually tastes better (with reds, anyway). I’m too impatient to wait on that first glass, though.
First of all, it’s mostly noticeable in red wines; whites don’t really need it.
And, yes, it can make a difference. The most obvious example to me was a wine I got as a gift. I drank it and it was very harsh, but after leaving the bottle partially opened for a few days, the harshness and tannin mellowed and the wine was delicious.
It helps if the wine is decanted – by pouring it into another container, you slosh air into it, causing it to breathe that much faster.
Here’s a good quick primer - Letting Wine Breathe
There have been some earlier threads here – which I can’t seem to find – about letting wines breathe. There were quite a few posters, a majority IIRC, that thought letting wines breathe was folderol and hocus-pocus, and did nothing to change the flavor. I fall heavily on the opposite end of that argument, at least with heavier reds.
All alcohol tastes better on the second glass.
You can absolutely taste an improvement with many red wines after they have a chance to breath.
The locally produced wine in Egypt was so bad as to be almost undrinkable, but one of my friends used to put the red into her blender to aerate it. I’m not sure it helped much. That wine was beyond saving.
Until recently I would have brushed it off as wine-snob nonsense, but a bottle given to me by a friend a few months back made me a believer.
When he gave it to me, he recommended letting it sit for 5-10 minutes after pouring. I nodded in acknowledgment and promptly forget about it. About two months later my wife and I opened the bottle, poured a glass each and took a sip; it was fairly acidic, and didn’t really taste all that good.
We then got distracted by something and didn’t come back to the table for about 15 minutes. I decided to finish up the wine anyway, and the second taste was absolutely fantastic. I could not believe how much the flavor had changed in the course of a few minutes exposed to the air.
True, true, though when I drink wine, my second glass is usually an hour or so after the first, and I’ve usually had other tastes to cleanse my palate and time to eliminate any effect from the alcohol (not that I get much of anything off a glass of wine).
Come on… think this through.
Leaving a bottle of wine uncorked to “breathe” is just daft… the surface area of wine available is smaller than a penny, which isn’t going to allow much oxygen to reach the wine at all. It’s like trying to clear the air in a smokey room via the keyhole… there will be some effect, but it’ll be negligable.
It’s worth aerating certain “beefy” reds to allow tannins to disperse, but you need a good couple of hours for this to really make a difference (and even then it’s a matter of personal taste).
(When wine was made with sulphur dioxide as a preservative it was necessary to let a wine “breathe” to disperse the sulphurous smell. This is not an issue with modern wines.)
The major benefit to allowing wine to stand in the bottle is that it comes to room temp. from cellar temp. Warmer wine releases more of the volatiles, which is why the flavour seems more “rounded”. As a logical extension, think what your kitchen smells like when you have a pan of heated mulled wine in winter… same effect (on a reduced scale) when you let your bottle of wine stand for a while.
Temperature has the biggest impact on red wines…
And don’t forget that this applies to white wines too. Way too many Americans drink whites way too cold, which mutes a lot of their flavor. Allowing a white wine to come up towards room temp some affords it an opportunity to let it’s flavors and aromas become more pronounced.
I would never decant an old say, Bordeaux, for instance. You can pour it straight from the bottle and use a light or a candle to pour it all out except for the last half inch or so, which will generally be full of sediment from ageing.
Very old wines also need to be consumed rather quickly, within an hour or so, as they fade fast when exposed to air.
As a general rule of thumb though, most wines need no aeration as they are meant to be consumed right our of the bottle. I find the only exception to this is very young, tannic reds, which may need some air for some people’s palates to soften the tannins. I like big tannic reds though, so I never bother. I just swirl away in the glass.
If I am in a restaurant that has a knowledgeable wine steward, I’ll go with their opinion. If I am at home, I usually do not plan ahead enough, although I do notice a “second glass effect”.
Years ago, most of the wines I drank had already suffered cardiac arrest, so I just gave them mouth-to-mouth resusitation. Nowadays, I give them a chance to first breath on their own in a glass.
Absolutely makes a difference with some reds. The best thing to do is to decant it, but what I often do is pour it into the glass from as high above the glass as I can, making sure to create a lot of bubbles. That speeds up the breathing process. It also helps to have the wine at the right temp. Just as whites lose a lot of flavor when severed too cold, reds lose flavor by being too warm. Room temp doesn’t mean 75 deg-- more like 65 for reds. Americans are famous for serving whites too cold (right out of the fridge) and reds too warm (sitting on the counter at room temp).
One trick to try with reds- take a sip, hold it on the front of your tongue, and pull air thru it (kinda like sipping hot soup off a spoon). You can taste the wine as it changes due to aeration!
I’m sure there’s something absolutely obvious about this and I that will smack my head in shame when you explain - but why and how would you use a light or a candle to pour from a bottle???
So one can see the sediment.
:smack:
Thank you!
No, I’m not even gonna write how I pictured it being used.