(The bottle was placed at the restaurant some days in advance, as I recall. The owner was experienced, and does know about all of that, decanting at home when appropriate. He was the same one who mentioned thousands of bottles of older Burgundies. The restaurant is an hour away from the wine-owner's home, requiring that any decanting for the purpose of clarification, "just before service," occur at the restaurant, not at home, therefore requiring that the wine go to the restaurant in advance.)
In the two New York cases, the bottles were from inventory at the restaurant.
The common element in all three cases, to reiterate, was magnums of Burgundies with sediment, with knowledgeable customers, at US restaurants, who requested decantation immediately before service for the purpose of avoiding distributing sediment into the wine. As I mentioned, this has been common practice in the past, and elsewhere, such as in Burgundy. The sommeliers all refused as a matter of firm policy.
What I would have done (and I have it done) was to decant myself. Anyhow - I would write a firm letter of complaint to the management of these three restaurants.
The case, however, seems to exist. It has been reported quite frequently, that decanting seems to be less frequent in Burgundy. Michael Broadbent ("The Compleat Wine taster and Cellarman", Mitchell Beazley, 1984, p. 193) seems to sum it up quite well:
| When it comes to red Burgundy, there are two schools of thought. | In Burgundy itself, the wine is rarely decanted. I am not at all | sure for the reason of this, but I /am/ sure that great care | must be taken when pouring from the bottle and ample time given | for the sediment to settle. You need a steady hand or an | old-fashioned decanting craddle with a cranking handle and | smooth action. In the latter instance, the glasses are brought | to the decanting craddle, not craddle to the glasses. If this | contraption is not used, for most of us do not possess one, then | I recommend that the glasses are all lined up by the bottle, the | wine being poure steadily from glass to glass. In either case, | it is essential for the pouring to stop before the sediment | reaches the upper neck. (...) I personally consider that all red | Burgundy should be decanted. It is far safer.
That's what these snobbish ignorants that call themselves sommeliers should read!
If a bottle of old burgundy is going to crash and burn after just a few minutes when the entire bottle is poured into a single decanter, then that same wine will crash and burn after just a few minutes when a 2-3 oz serving is poured into a wine glass- more surface area relative to the wine's volume and thus an even more dramatic exposure to oxygen.
For young burgundies, I tend to open the bottle up to 2 hours in advance and just let it sit like that- pouring glasses as needed. That allows a full view of the evolution of the wine as it receives exposure to the air. This is important to making guesses about the wine's future. Thus with young ones, I like them to see little, if any air. I will not even open the bottle in advance unless it is a very young grand cru.
For older burgundies (ie 1960s and prior), I have always decanted. The process here has been to decant the wine and then immediately close the decanter and set it aside until we get to the older wines at the dinner (typically 1-2 hours later.) In this way, you do allow some oxygen exposure, but you do not take any chances of overdoing it.
This has never been a problem.
I think it is too easy to look at an old burgundy, see the often anemic color, and just assume via common sense that the wine is terribly fragile. In my experience, that is just not the case.
And some older wines benefit greatly from extended air. Last year I opened a magnum of 1955 Clos Vougeot and we got so tired of waiting for it to open up that I opened and swirled the decanter a few times- then left the decanter unopened. 2 hours later the wine was singing.
1959 DRC Grands Echezeaux was another example of this from a few years back. It needed a lot of decanting to come into its own, and still did not fully develop until it had rested in the glass for about 30 minutes. The color and impact of that wine was anything but fragile!
Vintage is probably the best guide here though. Some vintages- like 1961 and
1953 are more likely to suffer from excess decanting. It is still a good idea (with the closed decanter method I suggest above), but I would not advise the treatment we gave the 55 and 59 above.
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