The Benefits of Using Wine Decanters

Using a decanter to serve wine makes the entire experience change from a regular wine drinking session to an elaborate and elegant wine experience. Serving wine in a decanter also sends out a message about you as a host and immediately places you among the elite. The taste of the wine is also lifted and the wine tastes much better when served from a decanter.

There are three basic benefits of using wine decanters. These are aeration, presentation and sedimentation.

Presentation is the most obvious and talked about benefit of serving wine in decanters. An elegant decanter can add style and panache to a party or event. It can convert a simple occasion and make it special and rare. When you serve wine in decanters, you also make a statement about the guests that you have invited and state that they are important enough to be served wine from a decanter and not the regular wine bottle.

Aeration is another benefit of storing and serving wine from a decanter. While the decantation process takes place, the wine is also oxygenated. Since most wines are kept in bottles for elongated periods of time, they are generally devoid of any oxygen. When the wine is exposed to the atmosphere, it breathes in oxygen as if it has been deprived of it for ages. This process of oxygenation changes the taste of the wine to make it better. While you should not allow the wine to be exposed to the atmosphere, a short period of exposure can add to the wine taste to a large extent.

Wine that has been closed in a bottle ages ago and is opened suddenly and poured into a wine glass does not really expose the flavour that it has. Oxygenation ensures that the real flavour of the wine is exposed and the aroma spreads ensuring a multiple sense experience. Some wines need to be exposed in a decanter for only a few minutes for them to acquire their real taste. Others like the dessert styled or sweet vintage ports, take hours for the real flavour to emerge.

Manufacturers who make good wines know that they should not be filtered before bottling. If these wines are not filtered, their complexity in flavour and depth of taste remains intact. As the wine ages, sediments settle in the wines and when these have to be served using a decanter becomes necessary. Sediments need to be allowed to settle for some time before the wine can be decanted out of the decanter to obtain a clear liquid.