1998 Tedeschi Amarone della Valpolicella

[Thomas]

Well sedhed, you made a good point about decanting young Amarone. A younger wine likely benefits from the oxygen of decanting. But why take an older wine and give it a lot of exposure?

I believe older wines, if they are opened at their expected peak, should be handled gently--too much oxygen can make them lose a lot of their power. I like a gentle pouring into the glass and a sniff; if it needs a little more time, I wait twenty or thirty minutes (of course, I sip something else while I wait...).

I admit to having no scientific evidence on this one, but I get a gut feeling about the level and violence of oxygen introduced when decanting. When I produced wine, I was always amazed at how easy it was to subdue a wine with oxygen (and to bring one out too).