Just Decant !

Decant your red wines !   Just do it !

I have of late started to decant pretty much everything. The way our drinking pattern is aligned these COVID orientated months, we often drink half a bottle most evenings, so the other half of the bottle gets to see the fridge overnight.  As a result I have gained more experience with what wines taste like the second day. The wine invariably tastes more relaxed and less angular and with more interesting fruit the next day. And even when we have had several glasses of the wine on the first night, the second glass normally tastes better than the first. So now I decant on the first night.

Decanting can be a tedious exercise. But it really just requires a water jug and a bit of foresight. 

I truly cannot recall a red wine intended to be kept that tasted less appealing for being decanted at least a short while, even after twenty years in the bottle. And I have have witnessed some spectacular reversals of fortune over the course of just a few hours, where a wine that seemed initially very disappointing - indeed perhaps flawed - reaffirmed itself later.

A possible exception is for very old wines - 40 years or so - where fragility may merit not taking the risk.

A year on from this post - in November 2021 - I have no reason to modify this view.