Matching wine with food

[Thomas]

carsonjane, you missed a major part of KC's Merlot suggestion--he said Italian Merlot. As far as I know, Italians have no white Merlots on our market--at least I hope not.

The Osso Buco will not pair well with a white Merlot simply because most of those wines are not really dinner wines; they are mainly for sipping or snacking, and they contain sweetness.

As for temperature and decanting: for what you are doing, red at 65 degrees; white at 55 degress; and you need not worry about decanting, unless you want to impress someone with flair! But, to answer your question directly, decanting can spoil very old wines and rarely spoils young wines, yet as soon as oxygen invades any wine, it begins to change it.