On Friday night past I opened a bottle of Côtes du Rhône we got as a sample from a supplier. A really fantastic wine once you got past the funky nose. Melt-in-your-mouth silky tannins, juicy ripe fruit and it just sang with Nigel Slater’s vegetarian mushroom lasagna we’d picked from his Kitchen Diaries book – a must purchase for any foodie.

I normally decant reds, even for twenty minutes, but I didn’t in this case. It performed well from the outset, but there was a considerable amount of sediment at the bottom of the bottle. It didn’t really bother me much at all, but I’ve gathered from experience that for a lot of people it’s a bit of a turn off.

In this instance I could relate to that a little. The further we got down the bottle the more ‘gritty’ it seemed to feel on the palate. I probably should have run it through the decanter’s sieve but most of it just ended up resting at the bottom of the bottle anyway. No harm done, still a very enjoyable drinking experience.

The important thing to note is that sediment is harmless. If anything, it indicates that you have a wine of quality in your hands. Today most commercial wines are filtered, often to extremes, but I think the sediment shows wine as it should be, in a very pure form. It also shows there has been good extraction from the grapes.

The sediment which develops in red wine is formed from tannins and other solid matter that gradually falls to the bottom of the bottle. The presence of this material helps give the wine character and complexity, but you don’t have to leave it in the wine when you serve it, as I do. Pass the wine from the bottle into a decanter via a sieve and it’ll be sediment free. Easy as one, two, three.

If you are new to decanting or if you are simply unconvinced by this traditional technique, be sure to read this post and it might just be the best new tip you learn this week.

Decanting wine for three or four hours is not always an option, so Tim Ferriss, the ‘the world’s best guinea pig’, has come up with four methods, two of which are described as ‘hyperdecanting’.

That’s when you don’t have three or four hours to sit around and wait for that stubborn Bordeaux to mellow. I, so far, have only practised methods one and two.

Method 1

This involves swishing and swirling the wine in the glass, keeping the base of the stem flat on the table and moving the glass in fast, small circles. When tasting, draw some air in through your mouth and past the wine, making an almost gargling sound.

Method 2

The traditional method – decanting in a glass jug. Don’t worry too much about the shape of it. The idea is to get the wine out of the bottle to let the air at it. For most wines, give 1-2 hours. Some, the Millantu for example, will be at its best after decanting overnight.

Method 3

The Vinturi Wine Aerator, or something similar. This device draws in and mixes the proper amount of air for the right amount of time, allowing your wine to breathe instantly. According to the notes on Amazon: “you’ll notice a better bouquet, enhanced flavours and a smoother finish…. Bernoulli’s Principle states that as the speed of a moving fluid increases, the pressure within the fluid decreases. This is dictated by the law of conservation of energy. When wine is poured in the Vinturi, it’s internal design creates an increase in the wine’s velocity and a decrease in its pressure. This pressure difference creates a vacuum that draws in air which is mixed with wine for perfect aeration.”

Method 4

The most crude of all. Ferriss got this one from Nathan Myhrvold, former CTO of Microsoft and master French chef. Pour 1-2 glasses into a mixing bowl (or a Bomex beaker, such as that used in the above video) and blitz with a soup blender. Classy stuff, but apparently it works!

Thanks to Ron Immink for forwarding this article on to us.

Decanting: “Optional and controversial step in serving wine, involving pouring wine out of its bottle into another container called a decanter. ” Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but there seems a perception among some that decanting, or letting a wine breathe, is completely unnecessary and only useful for showing off an elaborate, expensive and glorified crystal jug at the dining table. For most wines, in fact for all white wines, it’s completely unnecessary, and I’m sure there are indeed those who just like doing it to show off their jugs now and again.

Before the art of filtration and clarification, wine, often poured straight from barrels, had a considerable amount of sediment left over from the wine making process. Completely harmless, and usually the sign of a good wine, it can taste and look a little unpleasant, so it was the norm to filter this out with the help of a decanter. Nowadays most wines have been cleared of this solid matter before packaging, but some will develop in bottle with age.

The best reason I can see for using a decanter is to let the wine aerate. The large surface area in contact with the air in the decanter alters the wine, softening its youthful bite and encouraging the development of the more complex aromas that normally develop with years in bottle. For this reason even those inexpensive wines can benefit from decanting, if a first taste reveals a tannic, grippy, youthful structure.

Now let me now introduce you to Gary Vaynerchuk, the Internets most revered wine blogger and owner of Wine Library, a $45 million wine business based in New Jersey, USA. Gary gets over 80,000 viewers daily, and in the attached video he compares a freshly opened Amon-Ra with one that has been decanted. We stock the 100 Parker Point 2006 vintage, so if you ever have an occasion special enough to open this kind of wine, please, pretty pretty please, decant before drinking..!

Ps. Decanters don’t have to be expensive either. You should pick one up for around €10.