How to Decant Wine: Sediment, Air, or Neither

How Do You Decant Wine?

To decant wine, first decide what the decanting is for. If the bottle has sediment, stand it upright for at least a day, open it without tipping it, then pour slowly and steadily into a clean jug or decanter with a light under the bottle's neck, stopping when the deposit appears in the neck. If you only want to give the wine air, taste a small glass first and decant briefly, just before serving. Most everyday bottles need neither.

What Does Decanting Actually Do?

Decanting simply means pouring wine out of its bottle into another vessel. It is asked to do two quite different jobs, and most confusion about it comes from mixing them up.

The first job is sediment separation: leaving behind the deposit, the dark grit and flakes that some wines form as they age in bottle.

The second job is aeration, exposing the wine to air in the hope it smells and tastes better. The Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET), a wine-education body, describes this in its serving and decanting FAQ as "another traditional but disputed reason for decanting." Aeration is a matter of taste, so it deserves a test rather than a rule.

There is also a third option, and it is the right one for most bottles: pour straight from the bottle and enjoy the evening.

When Should You Decant Wine?

The same WSET FAQ says that during bottle ageing "some red wines naturally form a deposit" and that "ideally, wines with a heavy deposit should be decanted." The usual candidates it names are vintage ports, wines built to age in bottle, and reds made with little filtration. It also notes that because most everyday table wines are well filtered and are not designed for ageing, they are unlikely to produce sediment.

Our guide to types of red wine explains which styles tend toward the bigger, longer-lived end.

How Do You Decant Wine for Sediment?

The aim is to keep the deposit in one place and pour the clear wine away from it.

1. Let the sediment settle. Wine Spectator's advice on serving an older vintage port is to "stand the bottle upright for at least a day before you intend to serve it, so any sediment can settle at the bottom." If the bottle has been lying in a rack, WSET's method is to remove it horizontally and hold it carefully so the deposit is not disturbed, moving it as gently as possible at every stage.
2. Check for a paint mark. On vintage port, the port house Taylor's notes in its guide to serving port that a splash of white paint on the bottle shows which way up it was cellared, and "this mark should be uppermost." The deposit will be lying on the opposite side.
3. Open it gently. Wine Spectator suggests removing the top of the capsule completely and cleaning the lip of the bottle with a damp paper towel. For an older cork, the same piece recommends a waiter's corkscrew with an extra-long worm, and if the cork breaks, withdrawing the corkscrew and going in again at a 45-degree angle rather than through the original hole.
4. Put a light under the neck. Wine Spectator notes that a candle is traditional and a flashlight is easier to handle. A torch or phone light is the practical choice, as it keeps an open flame away from glassware, napkins and pouring hands.
5. Pour in one slow, steady movement. Tilt the bottle and keep wine flowing into the decanter without tipping the bottle back upright between pours, which would wash the deposit back through the wine. WSET's instruction is to pour carefully in front of the light "until the deposit can be seen near the neck."
6. Stop, and accept the loss. Wine Spectator says there will most likely be "an ounce or two of sediment-laden wine still in the bottle."

For a heavily crusted bottle, Taylor's says the port "may benefit from filtering through some clean muslin held in a funnel," and Wine Spectator suggests a funnel or sieve lined with cheesecloth if you want to recover the last murky inch.

Is the sediment itself a problem? WSET is clear: "Although it will cause you no harm, this sediment may taste bitter or astringent."

What If You Did Not Stand the Bottle Up in Time?

Keep it at the angle it was resting: lift it slowly into a basket or cradle, draw the cork with the bottle still tilted, and pour from that same low angle, watching the neck. Expect to leave a little more wine behind, and let a muslin-lined funnel catch what slips through.

Should You Decant Wine to Let It Breathe?

Sometimes, briefly, and only after tasting. The science is more modest than the ritual. In a SevenFifty Daily article on the science of decanting, Maurizio Ugliano, professor of enology at the University of Verona, separates two effects: "Evaporation takes place instantly," while oxygen "reacts with wine quite slowly—over hours or days."

So the quick, genuine effect of decanting is that volatile compounds escape. The article names low-boiling sulfur compounds as among the quickest to go, including hydrogen sulfide, "which manifests in swampy or rotten-egg aromas," and free sulfur dioxide, "which smells like matchstick and smoke." If a freshly opened wine smells faintly of struck matches, a few minutes of air may clear it.

The slower effect, oxidation, cuts both ways. Ugliano adds that "if you decant and then wait for a couple of hours, some changes due to oxidation will probably take place." Those changes are not always improvements, which is why WSET notes that some experts argue the opposite case entirely, and that in most cases "swirling wine in your glass is all the aeration needed."

As for the popular idea that decanting softens a red's grip, treat it as something to taste for rather than a promise. Our explainer on tannins in wine covers what that drying feeling is and why it varies from bottle to bottle.

How Can You Test Whether a Wine Needs Air?

Let the wine tell you, one small glass at a time:

• Pour a small taste on opening. Smell it and sip it. If it is already lovely, stop there.
• Swirl and taste again. If a minute of swirling clearly helps, the wine responds to air.
• Decant only if the swirl helped and the bottle still seems closed. Pour it into a jug, then taste again every quarter of an hour or so.
• Serve when it tastes good, not when a clock says so. WSET recommends that aeration decanting happen for a short time, just before serving, and admits that for younger wines "there's really no standard advice, the best thing is to experiment a little."

For older bottles the advice in the SevenFifty piece from sommelier Michael Madrigale is short: "decant and serve immediately."

What Can You Use Instead of a Decanter?

Any clean, odour-free glass vessel will do the job, as long as you can pour into it neatly.

• A glass water jug or carafe. Ideal for sediment work, and perfectly good for aeration.
• A second clean wine bottle and a funnel. Pour off the clear wine, rinse the original bottle with water, and funnel the wine back in. This is often called double decanting, and it lets you serve from the original labelled bottle.
• A wide-based decanter. A broad base exposes more surface to air, which suits aeration. For an old wine decanted only for sediment, a narrower vessel limits air contact.
• A funnel with a strainer. Taylor's notes that "a small funnel, ideally with a strainer, may be helpful."

Rinse any vessel with plenty of water before use so no detergent smell reaches the wine. One caution applies to heirloom glassware. A McGill University Office for Science and Society article by chemist Joe Schwarcz explains that "if beverages are stored for a long time in decanters made of lead crystal, tiny amounts of lead can leach out," and that port wine "can steadily increase its lead concentration up to 50 fold in four months." The article says serving drinks from a lead crystal decanter at a dinner party is not a problem, but that drinks "should not be stored in them for any period of time." Use a lead crystal decanter for serving only, and return any leftover wine to a glass bottle.

When Is It Better to Skip Decanting?

Skip it when the wine is an everyday bottle with no deposit, when the first taste is already good, when the wine is sparkling, or when you are unlikely to finish it. Decanted wine has been exposed to more air than wine left in its bottle, so it has less margin as a leftover. If you decant more than an hour before serving, Wine Spectator recommends putting a stopper in the decanter. For anything left at the end of the evening, return it to a closed bottle in the fridge; our guide to how long wine lasts after opening explains the realistic window by style.

For most bottles, temperature matters more than air; our serving temperature guide gives starting bands for each style.

Decanting is a tool, not a ceremony. Use it when there is grit to leave behind or a wine that clearly opens with air, and otherwise let the bottle pour.

Sources

• WSET: Frequently asked questions about serving and decanting wine
• Wine Spectator: How do I serve my Taylor Fladgate 1977?
• Taylor's: How to serve Port
• SevenFifty Daily: The science behind decanting wine (Rémy Charest, 2018)
• McGill Office for Science and Society: Is it dangerous to store alcoholic beverages in decanters made of lead crystal?