Decant the wine?

[njbusnet]

As you can see I'm very new at this. What does it mean to decant wine, and what is the importance of it?

[Jerry D Mead]

There are two reasons to decant...to separate clear wine from sediment in older wine...and to aerate young astringent reds.

Decanting is the act of pouring wine from the bottle into a separate container (decanter).

In the case of an older bottle with sediment, stand the bottle up for several hours to several days...then keeping the bottle upright, open it and gently pour the contents into the decanter, preferably with a candle or other strong light behind your action so as to see when you are about to start pouring the cloudy or sedimented wine...stop pouring leaving a little wine and all the sludge behind.

In the case of a young wine, the idea is to hasten its oxygenation...so pour vigorously, literally splashing the wine in the decanter...this often seems to help soften aggressing youthful tannins/astringency.

JDM