Breathing and vapors

Mike

The experience of many people here does not support your assertion. Young wines, such as Red Bordeaux under ten years, reveal very little of their bouquet unless they are allowed to breathe for an hour or more, preferably by decanting.

Tom Schellberg

Of course, there are some aromas which are not pleasant which escape as well. Certainly, as one gains experience with older wines, one finds that they often come out of the bottle with a little bit of funk that takes a few minutes to blow off. Of course, "good aromas" will also blow off, so it's really a matter of experience in knowing how to catch the peak as the wine opens up.

So I wouldn't quite generalize as you have above. Certainly, I usually do not decant unless I'm concerned about sediment in an older wine, and I do not open wines long before serving (unless I have direct experience with the same bottling). I'm really not too worried about losing aromas that "escape almost at once"... since, if present, they escape almost at once, you'll lose them by the time you've poured the wine :-).

Dana

Salut/Hi Michael Scarpitti,

le/on 2 Sep 2004 13:37:58 -0700, tu disais/you said:-

No one suggest you should. Opening the bottle without decanting is a total waste of time.

After uncorking, I replace

Your experience is diametrically the opposite of mine. I find that after decanting, leaving a wine to breathe allows it to develop the aromas it won't show if you don't decant.

Sorry, but I don't buy that theory - especially (but not exclusively) in the case of young red wines.

Those highly volatile aromas that escape quickly are low molecular weight compounds. A few of them would be: · Acetaldehyde and Acetic Acid - volatile acidity (vinegar) · Sulfur Dioxide - neither vinous nor pleasant, although a common preservative in wines) · Hydrogen Sulfide - rotten egg smell (common in young wines, as it is a normal product of fermentation) · Carbon Dioxide - Do you _like_ spritzy red wine?

Not all wines benefit from airing/decanting, but many do - especially young red wines.

Tom S

you are new here, so I understand that you want to make a big entry, but coming in as Mr.-I-can-debunk-all-wine-myths and calling what most of us do sheer stupidity will get people's attention, but you should consider that maybe you are wrong.

Really? Which aromas are the most volatile, can you list them? Can you show that a less delicate aroma is less volatile?

So you leave the bottle on the table with the cork shoved partly in.

Waht you are preventing from escaping are indeed some of the most volatile things, such as excess sulphur smell and and acetic acid that might be in there. The inmpression is that the first smells to be released are in fact the most unpleasant, the ones that kind of prick the inside of your nostrils.

I will continue to decant (or was it "carafe") ;-)))

Welcome on board, I guess.

Mike

Mike Tommasi, Six Fours, France email link

Salut/Hi Mike Tommasi,

le/on Fri, 03 Sep 2004 08:13:00 +0200, tu disais/you said:-

Grin!! Like the time I entered a (slightly dark) cellar full of eminent wine tasters, very full of myself, and carrying "my" wineglass. I failed to notice the slight step, fell flat on my face, with some pretty ripe language, and spattered half those present with the wine. Yup, I was noticed.

Reminds me of Cromwell addressing the british Parliament (I think it was called the "rump" parliament). I may be misquoting slightly. "Gentlemen!! By the bowels of Christ I implore you; to consider, if only for one moment, the possibility that you might be wrong." No doubt that's what Michael is thinking ;-)))

NAUGHTY boy! "Decant" (he said firmly).

"Mind your heads please, the beams is very, very low." Bonk.

Did that really happen to you? Ouch... I have not (yet) managed anything like that, but it is sure to happen. I once got people giggling when they noticed (I hadn't) that I was swirling and sniffing my glass of water...

This could open up a new thread : most embarrassing moments in your wine "carreer"...

Mike

Mike Tommasi, Six Fours, France email link

Mike, I think you are on to something there.

Above statement uttered, because I've a doozie to add to that thread, kind of a "Red Badge of Courage," or something in that wine, erh, I me vein. :-}

Hunt

I do the saem thing. OFten at trade tastings>Did that really happen to you? Ouch... I have not (yet) managed

I tend to do the same thing. At trade tasting whiel rinsing the glass between wines I tend to swirl the water to rinse out the previous wine and I often find myself swirling and sniffing out of habit. Bi!!

I drink mostly southern Italian, Sardinian, and Sicilian reds, as well as good Dolcetto, Barbera, and Nebbiolo from Piedmont.

I open a bottle and keep it on the table with the cork replaced. I don't breathe the wines.

How long do you keep the bottle on the table, partial empty and recorked?

In my own experience, there's little or no difference between recorking between pours and not recorking between pours over the course of even a couple of hours. In fact, I've tried this once or twice out of curiousity, pulling the cork on a bottle and letting it sit, full, doesn't have significant impact, either. There's just not a lot of wine expose to air in the neck of the bottle.

Dana

I found this:

Which is a whole different kettle of fish than the categorical denunciation you issued at the start of this thread. And even this modified statement I only partially agree with. Contrary to their assertion that aged wines don't benefit from airing, I can recall dozens of completely mature wines that, open initial opening, had virtually *no* flavor, but with

Your initial post also presupposes that all the flavor/bouquet elements are present in their final form in the wine before opening. That is rarely the case, however. Many of the "tertiary" aromas of wine are the result of oxidation processes that take place upon exposure of the wine to air. The same thing is true of the aroma of freshly brewed coffee: the most prominent component of its smell is produced by oxidation in the brewed coffee (remarkably, as the odorant is a thiol), which is why coffee tastes best when brewed with cold water (rich in dissolved oxygen) that is brought just short of its boiling point (so that the water is not degassed).

Mark Lipton

A friend and I have big Italian dinners with 8-12 people several times per year. We go through 6 or 7 bottles per dinner. The wine disappears rapidly.

Mike

Most of these, with the exception of the bigger Nebbiolo (eg Barolo, Barbaresco) do not benefit from long ageing, so you strategy is fine.

Keep in mind that pouring off half the bottle, as you drink the wine, will expose the rest of the bottle to a significant amount of air (in the upper part of the bottle) Thus, replacing the cork accomplishes little. But if you drink these wines up quickly at big parties, most of the aeration probably occurs in the glass as you drink it, and little in the bottle.

Tom Schellberg

I can tell you that the Taurino Patrigliano is a wine with a HUGE nose. You can smell it a yard away. It is usually aged 6-8 years before release. I treat it the same way as the others. I do not 'breathe' any wine before serving.

What I think actually happens is that as we eat the food and drink the wine, the wine seems to taste better as the meal progresses. It has nothing to do with the aeration of the wine, but with our tongues.

Certainly food has an impact on how a wine is perceived, but, sometime for fun, try drinking a wine slowly over a period of

Dana

That's because the alcohol cleans off your tongue.

... and I suppose it does something to your nose to dramatically the aroma of the wine over that time, too?

No sale. It's a well-documented scientific process by which wine is influenced by exposure to air.

Dana