Decanting Question

Our wine club will be tasting the following tonight, and I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts as to whether any of these would benefit from a quick decant (1/2 hour - 45 minutes will probably be all the time we'll have before tasting them). I only have one decantur so it can only be one of these!

2003 JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spatlese
2002 JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spatlese
2003 Amouriers Vacqueyras
2000 Amouriers Vacqueyras
2003 Cristom Pinot Noir
1997 Cristom Pinot Noir
1996 Chateau Potensac, Medoc
2002 Chateau Potensac, Medoc

My inclination would be towards the 2002 bordeaux, although maybe on of the rieslings? Second opinions appreciated!

I would go with your inclination.

Carl

[James Roscoe]

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Our wine club will be tasting the following tonight, and I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts as to whether any of these would benefit from a quick decant (1/2 hour - 45 minutes will probably be all the time we'll have before tasting them). I only have one decantur so it can only be one of these!

2003 JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spatlese
2002 JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spatlese
2003 Amouriers Vacqueyras
2000 Amouriers Vacqueyras
2003 Cristom Pinot Noir
1997 Cristom Pinot Noir
1996 Chateau Potensac, Medoc
2002 Chateau Potensac, Medoc

My inclination would be towards the 2002 bordeaux, although maybe on of the rieslings? Second opinions appreciated!

I would seriously consider decanting all of them, with the probable exception of the '97 Cristom. To solve the problem of a single decanter, double decant them: once into the decanter, rinse the bottle and back into the bottle. As an added bonus, you'll never lose track of what wine you're drinking if you pour it out of its own bottle

Mark Lipton

To solve the problem of a single decanter, double decant them: once into the decanter, rinse the bottle and back into the bottle. As an added bonus, you'll never lose track of what wine you're drinking if you pour it out of its own bottle.

Excellent advice, and SOP in many tastings. In fact, many of those wines are quite young (I wonder about the need to decant the Germans, unless they have a lot of SO2) so you don't have the usual double-decanting issue, which is to spot the sediment before it starts coming out of the bottle.

Even with say 10-15 year old reds with sediment, I find that carefully handling the bottles, gently decanting into a holding container (or pitcher or jar) and watching the wine through the bottle as it thins out near the neck (illuminated from the other side with a light if possible), I only need to hold back less than an ounce (15-20 ml) to keep all the sediment in the bottle and leave a sparkling clear wine to be returned to the rinsed bottle for service at the tasting.

Thanks, everyone. I may give the double decanting a try, although I will be transporting the wines just prior to needing to decant them so they won't have much time to settle (they're at home on their sides now). I'll give it a go at any rate, and hopefully they'll at least benefit from the oxygen.

Even more important if any have significant sediment. Double decant the reds before transport. None of thiese wines are so delicate that they'll fall apart. I often double decant wines couple hours before an offline (before I leave suburbs for city)

1996 Potensac is a nice little wine, only one I remember having recently. Still had some tannins, decanting not an issue.

The only times I've wished I hadn't double-decanted a Bdx or Rhone were maybe 20+ year olds from medium vintages.

A few thoughts:

1) If ANY wine is even mildly corked, and if you keep using the same decanter, then ALL subsequent wines will become mildly corked.

2) If there are ANY residual soap stains in the decanter, then [at least the first] wine which gets poured into the decanter will taste as though it's corked.

Unless you are extremely sensitive to TCA, and can verify that a wine you are about to pour into the decanter is not afflicted, and unless you can verify that there are absolutely no soap stains in the decanter, then I'd just open the bottles a priori, and leave them out to breath [the François Audouze "slow oxygenation" method].

A single bad bottle, or a soapy decanter [or soapy wine glasses, for that matter] can [and will] contaminate an entire tasting.

1) If ANY wine is even mildly corked, and if you keep using the same decanter, then ALL subsequent wines will become mildly corked.

2) If there are ANY residual soap stains in the decanter, then [at least the first] wine which gets poured into the decanter will taste as though it's corked.

Unless you are extremely sensitive to TCA, and can verify that a wine you are about to pour into the decanter is not afflicted, and unless you can verify that there are absolutely no soap stains in the decanter, then I'd just open the bottles a priori, and leave them out to breath [the François Audouze "slow oxygenation" method].

A single bad bottle, or a soapy decanter [or soapy wine glasses, for that matter] can [and will] contaminate an entire tasting.

Well, most of us are savvy enough to rinse our decanters before using. I don't wash with soap, anyhow, but always rinse a decanter before using for any off odors. And its not exactly difficult to rinse between bottles.

As to TCA, even if you don't rinse- let's say a bottle is mildly corked, at the borderline of most people's sensitivity. Say 2 or even 3 parts per trillion. Now, you decant, and pour back into bottle. Lets be generous say a teaspoon clings to decanter. There are over 75 teaspoons to a bottle. So now we're talking .04 ppt. I've never heard anyone describe that as detectible or problematic. And of course that amount would get divided by 75 each subsequent decanting.

As to TCA, even if you don't rinse- let's say a bottle is mildly corked, at the borderline of most people's sensitivity. Say 2 or even 3 parts per trillion. Now, you decant, and pour back into bottle. Lets be generous say a teaspoon clings to decanter. There are over 75 teaspoons to a bottle. So now we're talking .04 ppt. I've never heard anyone describe that as detectible or problematic. And of course that amount would get divided by 75 each subsequent decanting.

The operative phrase here would be "most people's sensitivity".

Presumably these are wine geeks, and they've got the sensitivity dial jacked up to 11.

Trust me, if you start mixing [and contaminating] your juice, then a single bad bottle can [and will] ruin the entire tasting.

Keep the wines segregated in their own containers, unless you really know what you're doing [and even then, I'd keep them segregated].

Nathan, we double-decant all the time around here. Rinsing the temporary container between bottles. (Again: for double-decanting it does not need to be a decanter, in fact a pitcher or large measuring cup with a spout is very convenient.) If the person doing it is sensitive to TCA, they can skip decanting the corked bottle. If not, they should be rinsing the temporary container anyway, which ought to help a lot. In tasting a couple thousand double-decanted bottles, admittedly by people who know TCA and know to rinse, I don't think I've encountered a TCA cross-contamination.

I taste with a lot of geeks, professional and amateur. And like Max I've never run across a case of cross contamination. I do rinse between bottles, but even if you didn't, as I noted unless you're a believer in homeopathy the idea of a couple drops contaminating bottle doesn't work (I'll be happy to stand corrected if someone like Dr. Lipton can explain how it would work).