Ever Wonder? What's the Best Type of Decanter for Wine?

A decanter is a great vessel to allow a wine to breathe.  And, really any container will help a wine breathe. But, all too often, the decanter ends up looking like the one pictured here. This is a beautiful carafe and it's a great addition to a bar or table for serving wine. Unfortunately, it's a bit too narrow. It doesn't give the wine enough room to truly breathe. But, compared to leaving the wine cooped-up in an un-corked bottle, this type of decanter is a definite improvement. Not only does it give the wine a bit more space, it also allows the wine to catch a bit of a breath as it's being poured from the bottle to the decanter.

But to really give a bottle of wine a chance to breathe, you'll need some type of decanter that allows the wine to spread out and have a lot of surface area in contact with air.  The wide-base decanter pictured here is a great example. And, it's designed such that a single bottle of wine just fills the bottom and allows for the maximum amount of the wine's surface area to be exposed to air.

So, next time you open a bottle of wine and think it needs some time to breathe, pour it into a decanter, or really any vessel, that provides a large surface area for the wine to be in contact with air. And, after an hour or two, the wine should smooth out and be more enjoyable. Cheers!

Behind the Cork™ - Barone Montalto Pinot Grigio

2020 Barone Montalto Pinot Grigio ($11.99)

Sicily is a strong and legendary land. Its climate, nature and winemaking experience make it unique.

The story of Barone Montalto began in Santa Ninfa, in the province of Trapani, in 2000. Montalto wines come from great tradition, young character and are admired by a growing audience of wine consumers.

Barone Montalto manages around 400 hectares (~1000 acres) of vineyards. The majority of their vineyards, as well as their winery, are located in Santa Ninfa, in the heart of the Belice Valley. Other vineyards are in the province of Agrigento, in the Valle dei Templi and in Noto.

This wine is produced from 100% Pinot Grigio. And, just a fun-fact, Pinot Grigio is a pink grape that is a mutation of Pinot Noir.

This Barone Montalto Pinot Grigio is pale gold in color with aromas that include hints of citrus, lemon and herbs. On the palate it is smooth and easy with flavors of pear, peach and melon. The acidity is moderate and well-balanced. The wine finishes light and easy. Cheers!

Barone Montalto wines are imported by Mack & Schühle and distributed throughout the U.S.

---

Disclosure of Wine Sample Submission: I received this sample at no cost for review. The opinions expressed are entirely my own.

Sample Provided by Donna White Communications

Ever Wonder? Does a Wine Need to Breathe Before Being Served?

You may have heard about pulling the cork on a bottle of wine and “letting it breathe.” Those that follow this practice may give the un-corked bottle thirty minutes to an hour before declaring that “the wine is now ready to drink!”

While pulling the cork does allow air to enter the bottle, it is only filling the top-most part of the neck of the bottle with air and exposing the wine’s surface area equivalent to the size of a dime to the air.

Pulling the cork and leaving the opened bottle exposed to air will affect the wine over a long period of time (days to weeks). But, to really allow a bottle of wine to “breathe” before serving, the wine needs even greater exposure to air.

Exposing a wine to air, even briefly, while pouring it into a glass can help. But, wines will typically need more.

Why is this? Well, although wine is produced just from the juice of grapes and yeast, the chemistry that goes on during the fermentation process can yield a few undesirable bi-products. One of these bi-products is hydrogen sulfide that can smell of rotten eggs when sampling the wine’s aroma.

So, when you transfer wine from its bottle to another vessel (e.g., a decanter), the first process that kicks-in is evaporation. Not evaporation of the wine, per se, but evaporation of highly volatile components that are in the wine from the natural winemaking process. The second process that begins is oxidation. This short-term exposure of a wine to oxygen can be beneficial. Oxidation and evaporation both help to smooth out a wine’s rough edges and make them taste more balanced and expressive.

Thirty minutes to an hour in a decanter can help release these volatile compounds. But, you probably don’t want to exceed two to three hours of decanting in order to keep your wine’s flavors from actually becoming deadened.

In order to find the peak flavor of the wine after you have opened a bottle, you need to taste it immediately after you open it to establish a baseline. This understanding of where the wine started will help you determine when the evaporation and oxidation processes have peaked the wine’s flavors — it’ll just taste better and have a smoother mouth-feel.

Highly tannic and full-bodied wines benefit most from this – wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet blends, Syrah, and Syrah blends.

While this discussion is meant mostly for red wines and maybe a few aged white wines, most everyday young white wines do not need any exposure to air before consuming.

Do you need a fancy, expensive decanter to get all these benefits? No. So, next time we’ll look at different types of decanters and ways to best decant a wine. Cheers!

Behind the Cork™ - Phantom Chardonnay

2019 Phantom Chardonnay ($18.99)

It’s that spooky time of year again and a great time to re-visit the Phantom. This Chardonnay is from Bogle Vineyards where the story goes that a ghostly figure wanders their cellars at night. There are fleeting glimpses of muddy work boots and blue jeans, then it’s gone. Does the Phantom really exist? They believe so and absolutely believe that it has inspired them.

This California Chardonnay has aromas of honey and vanilla that go right along with flavors of golden apple and pear along with hints spicy caramel notes from the French oak fermentation.

There’s even an app you can download called “Augmented Reality Wine Labels” that allows you to scan the front label with your phone camera so that you can experience the paranormal stories of The Phantom.

Bogle has a lot of fun with this wine. But, don’t be fooled - this is a serious Chardonnay. This Phantom Chardonnay is very attainable and very affordable, making yet again a great fit as a Behind the Cork™  Wine of the Week. And, also look for their red blend; it’s great too! Cheers!

Ever Wonder What Makes a Wine Age Worthy? (Part 2)

Wines with the best “structure” will generally age most gracefully.

Finding wines that will improve over time requires that you pay attention to a wine’s structure. What is structure? These are the primary components:

• Acidity - Wines lose acidity over time, so it’s important that the acidity be moderately high to aid as a preservative. Acidity can be detected in a wine by it mouth-watering characteristic.

• Tannin - These compounds stabilize a wine’s flavor and help maintain its color. Tannins, when young, will be detected by its astringency or mouths-drying characteristic.

• Alcohol - Acts as a stabilizer in higher amounts (e.g. fortified wines) and in some dry wines with >15% ABV). Alcohol levels are generally printed on the label. High levels of alcohol can be detected by a mild burning sensation in the throat after swallowing.

Finally, it’s the interaction of tiny amounts of oxygen in the bottle along with the acids, tannins and alcohol that produce the chemical interactions that affect how a wine ages.

But, each of these attributes must be in balance with one another. That is, in proportion to each other. And, the best way to know if a wine is balanced is by tasting it and learning to detect this overall balance.

Here are some wines that tend to have good structure that tend to be age-worthy:

• Cabernet Sauvignon

• Syrah

• Merlot

• Bordeaux Wines (which are primarily blends of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah)

• Nebbiolo

• Sangiovese (the grape used in Italian Chianti)

• Tempranillo (the grape used in Spanish Rioja)

• Pinot Noir (the grape used to make red Burgundy)

• Malbec

Even with this knowledge, experienced collectors sometimes have trouble determining which wines will age and for how long. So, you’re not alone in trying to figure this out.

Again, most wines are ready for consumption as soon as they are bottle. It’s only a very small percentage of wines that are actually able to age well. And, you’ll probably need to spend $50 (US) or more to find such age-worth wines.

So, if you find a great red wine, with great structure and it’s well-balanced, try putting a few more away in proper storage, and then pull them out one at a time (every 6 to 12 months) to see how they are changing with age. Hopefully for the better! Cheers!