On Decanting, and Whether It Is Theatre

Decanting does two entirely different jobs and people routinely conflate them.

The first is separating wine from sediment, which older reds throw as they age. This job is real, it is necessary, and it requires only that you pour slowly and stop before the murk arrives. A candle beneath the shoulder of the bottle is traditional and genuinely helps you see what you are doing, though it is also, admittedly, extremely good theatre.

The second is aeration, letting a tight young wine open up. This job is also real, though less urgent than the elaborate rituals surrounding it suggest. A young, structured red will improve over thirty minutes in a decanter. Most wines under twenty pounds will show you everything they have within five minutes in the glass.

What decanting cannot do is improve a bad wine. Air will not repair thinness, and it will not remove a fault. It merely gives a good wine room to speak.

So decant your old bottles carefully and your young structured ones happily. Decant a supermarket red into a crystal vessel if it pleases you, and it may well please you, but do not pretend the wine has noticed.