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Wine Serving: Letting Wine Breathe
What does it mean to let a wine breath? Simply, it is exposing wine to air or aerating it.
This allows the oxygen in the air to affect the wine.
Generally an opened bottle of white wine does not react right away to oxygen, so when we talk about
letting a wine breathe; we are talking about red wine.
All wine is crafted in a way that causes it to evolve over time. If this were not the case, then we would buy and drink month-old wine like we buy month-old beer. The evolution of the subtle taste of wines is known as the mellowing of the wine. Tannins and acids are the components that have the most need to mellow. A balanced exposure to sufficient oxygen, over time, first in the barrel and then in the bottle prevents wines from tasting harsh.
Eventually, as the tannins and/or acids fade a bit, the fruit begins to exert itself and the wine’s components become more balanced and aromatic. Careful though, too much exposure over the years in the bottle and a good wine, especially red wine, will devolve into vinegar, caused by the development of acetic acid. Great for salads, but not for drinking!
So airing a red wine after opening the bottle is a last moment tune-up of the taste and bouquet. A Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz, for example, may need to breathe for an hour or more, depending on how the wine was made and how mature it is. Equally important are the personal tastes of the people who will be drinking the wine. Some people like to taste wines immediately and experience the evolution of taste while quickly emptying the bottle.
As a general rule, all red wines taste better ten minutes after you open the bottle and pour it
into a glass. Note: The wine needs to be in a glass or decanter. Just taking the cork out and
leaving the wine in the bottle is ineffective, too little of the wine is exposed to air.
Let your wine breathe in a glass.
Wines that are still before their peak when the cork is removed, may taste much better after half an hour or more in a glass. The timing of how long to let your wine breathe does not have to be a controlled scientific experiment. Let your taste buds develope your experiences as an art form.
It is fascinating to observe how bad some good wines may taste, when you first open the bottle. Keep in mind that a red wine will probably be better (and unlikely to be worse) after ten minutes of aeration. Even a white wine may benefit from some air and is unlikely to taste worse. And there are some wines that actually taste better the next day! (But please note that these wines had to be in a recorked bottle and not left out for a day in a wine glass).
The older a bottle of wine, the more stringent you want to be with the aeration period. When you have an expensive bottle of wine, fifteen or more years old, you do not want to give it much air time. Once opened, these wines can change drastically, literally from minute to minute. This is because a lot of the mellowing has already been done while sitting in the bottle for all those years; taste-wise these wines may run out of gas an hour after the bottle is opened. However, that can be an incredible hour, in which a seemingly static bottle of liquid changes dramatically.
The next time you pour yourself a glass of red wine, take your time with it, Sip it, savor it and open up your palate to new flavors.
Learn to Make GREAT WINES!
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