Wines and SpiritsEverything That You Need to Know About Letting Your Wine Breathe Or Aerating Your Wine
How does one know when and how to let wine breathe? Letting wine breathe is allowing additional air to enter into the liquid before it is served. This process is also known as aerating. At times, aeration will improve the aroma and flavor of a less mature wine. There are several ways to aerate vino: 1. Pour an open carafe. 2. Allow it to sit in large glasses for ten minutes before drinking.
Should all of the wines that you drink be aerated? No. Very few white wines need to aerate. Most white wines may be imbibed right out of the bottle unless they are too cold and need to warm up a few degrees. However, there are a few white wines that do well when aerated. The best Alsace white wines, full-bodied Burgundies and Bordeaux whites fit into this category. An indication that a wine may need aeration is if it does not have much in the way of aroma or flavor.
It may be advantageous to let the reds and dessert wines breathe. Many of these have tannins which give it bite. Aerating vino reduces the tannins and takes away some of the bite. Aeration mellows the wine. The younger and more tannic a wine may need to aerate for longer periods of time. A vino may need to aerate up to four hours or longer, especially the red ones from Piedmont, Italy which would be the young Barolos or Barbarescos. Cabernet Sauvignons, Bordeaux, a good many Italian wines and those from the northern Rhone Valley may need to aerate up to an hour to enhance their flavor. All of these are rich in tannins.
Some tannin may solidify and turn into sediment over time. This sediment gives the vino a bitter taste. One will want to remove this sediment by letting the bottle sit upright for a day or two. Once all the sediment is on the bottom of the bottle, very carefully pour into a decanter, leaving the sediment in the bottle.
Very old wine is fragile. An older wine will lose its flavor quickly once it has been poured from the bottle. A paler color indicates an older wine. An individual should drink these upon pouring. The darker the wine, the more aeration it will need. Younger wines will be darker, ruby reds and the older, more mature wines will generally be paler in color.