Letting Wine Breathe
Here’s a really good brief article on the effect of oxygen on wine.
Most wine drinkers know that some wines should breathe, but many don’t know what wines and for how long. Case in point: last night, I opened up a white wine, and a friend of mine asked, “Don’t we need to let it breathe?” The answer for that wine was a clear, “No”, but why?
Generally, breathing is necessary only for young, full-bodied red wines that are very tannic. When tannin meets its foe oxygen, it softens and doesn’t taste as strong. This results in a smoother wine that doesn’t bite your palate.
Most whites don’t need to breathe except some rare cases; sparkling wine definitely doesn’t need to breathe and should be drunk right after popping the cork; and in fact, most red wines don’t need to breathe either. I suppose you can do an initial taste (swirl a little in a glass, nose it, and swish it around in your mouth). If it tastes strongly tannic, then let it breathe a while before drinking.
March 27th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Truth in fact, just about every red wine should breathe. Though young wines do much better when decanted, old wines can do well too. It’s part of the reason why you only fill a glass 1/3 to 1/2 full when pouring red wine, it gives it another opportunity to breathe.
When travelling through wine country in Napa, Spain, France, or Italy, you’ll be very hard pressed to find an excellent wine that isn’t decanted first, especially the older ones.