Pour Your Heart Out

The joys of decanting a bottle of wine

Once upon a time - which is to say more than two decades ago - there was a young Napa sommelier named Lisa who loved to decant wine. Not just the usual sort of decantable wines (i.e. tannic young Cabernets, old Bordeaux) but wines of all kinds. Lisa decanted wine with wild, inspirational abandon. As I recall she even decanted Prosecco. Lisa was my real-life hero if not my spirit animal.

Lisa’s decanting zeal was greeting with disbelief bordering on outrage among oenophiles on a certain now-defunct wine forum. These oenophiles (all of whom were male as I recall) actually maintained an ongoing thread about the wines that its members said Lisa had decanted. I was equal parts intrigued and impressed. Who was this remarkable young woman possessed of such decanting passion?

And so it came to pass that the next time I was in Napa (interviewing Francis Ford Coppola for my Food & Wine column) I made it my business to drop by the restaurant where Lisa worked. I ordered a white wine- it was so long ago I can’t recall the exact wine- but it was something light and bright (i.e. not one that most soms would decant). Lisa asked if I wanted her to decant it. I replied: Yes. (Of course.)

It wasn’t that the wine “needed” decanting for the usual reasons (e.g. to aerate the wine which softens the tannins and/or releases the aromatic compounds of a wine). It was that Lisa, like me, loved the act of decanting- removing a wine from a “regular” wine bottle and pouring it into something even more beautiful to behold.

Indeed, the beauty of the decanter is a(nother) factor in my decision to decant. My (late) father was in the glass business and his love of beautiful glassware is a passion he passed down to me. Like my father I don’t just own all sorts of glassware but many different types of decanters as well.

I have conventional wine decanters from Riedel, cut glass decanters from classical glassmakers like Waterford Crystal and a bunch of decanters of unknown origin that I’ve picked up from estate sales or yard sales over the years. (Tip: the best place to buy a beautiful decanter is at an estate sale. Estate sale managers don’t seem to prize decanters overmuch and they’re almost always bargain-priced.)

While I’ll employ the “serious” decanters like my Riedel “O” for serious reds that need real decanting for the classical reasons (see above) I’ll turn to my beautiful less practical decanters for all the rest- especially whites and rosés. One of my favorites of this type of decanter (depicted) is one that my husband or I picked up at a yard sale.

Indeed my husband and I both love this particular decanter so much we both claim credit for its discovery - and we’re equally happy to put it to use- as we did just the other night. The wine that I chose to decant- a simple young Grüner Veltliner- may not have tasted different thanks to decanting but it was that much more enjoyable to view poured from beautiful glassware. My father would have approved.