Decanting Wine, Pouring and Other Serving Tips

There is still a lot of debate over when decanting wine is necessary. This section provides you with some information on when you should decant your wine. It also includes tips for pouring wine and other wine serving tips.

Decanting Red Wine

There are really only two times when it is essential to decant your wine. The first is to remove sediment from wine. The second is to tame the wine a little if it is too tannic to drink.

Decanting wine with sedimentation gives you the opportunity to remove the sediment from the wine before pouring it into your glass. If they are not decanted, the sedimentation will be in the wine in your glass and you might end up drinking it.

Since the sedimentation can be bitter tasting, decanting wine will increase your enjoyment when you are drinking it. Wines that might include sediments are aged red wines that are around or over 10 years old. You might also find it in wine that has had little or no filtration done during the wine making process.

It is also a great way to aerate younger wines quickly. By using a decanter on younger wines, the oxygen mixes with the wine faster. This allows you to enjoy it shortly after opening. If you are unable to give your wine at least a couple of hours to breath before drinking, then moving it into a decanter is a great alternative.

Five Steps to Follow for Decanting Wine

To find out if your wine has sediment, hold the wine up to a light and see if there are objects floating around in the wine. If so, decanting wine is necessary to remove the sediment. If you don't see anything floating in the wine, then decanting your wine is not necessary.

Here are the five steps to follow to decant your red wine:

As I mentioned above, another other reason you may want to decant your wine is if it's too tannic to drink. If you open the wine, taste it and it is too tannic then you can quickly move it to another container in order to allow it to mix faster with oxygen. This will soften the wine and make it more drinkable.

Here are some great products for decanting or aerating your wines:

Four Tips for Pouring and Serving Wine

If you don't need to decant, you are then ready to begin pouring and serving your wine. Here are tips for this part of the wine tasting process:

Here are some fun wine glasses from different types of red wines:

Want to learn more about storing you wine before you enjoy it? Check out the section 8 Tips for Storing Wine. You will learn about the different things you need to do in order to preserve your wine in storage. If you want to store your wine after it has been opened, then check out the section Storing Opened Wine for a few easy tips and tricks.