Before You Fill the Glasses
Once the right glasses have been selected and the cork successfully pulled, the party is not necessarily ready to begin. Different wine styles require different serving temperatures. Some require decanting, others don't. Whether you are pouring just for yourself or for a room of 20 people, there are a few more considerations to make if you really want the wine to impress.
Serving Temperature
The proper storage temperature of a wine is not necessarily the proper serving temperature of that wine. Pouring a glass of young Cabernet Sauvignon at 53°F will cause you or your guests to cringe at the accentuated astringency from the tannins. Serving any wine too cold masks its aroma and flavor. On the other hand, serving a wine too warm will make it seem flat and dull and overly alcoholic.
The familiar rule for red wines is to serve them at room temperature. This maxim stops being relevant if you enjoy a room temperature of 80°F. For white wines, the wine is too cold if you serve it immediately from the refrigerator. Before you start sticking thermometers in everyone's wine, here are some guidelines:
Sparkling wines and young, sweet white wines: 45 to 50°F
Dry whites and rosés: 50 to 60°F
Light-bodied reds: 55 to 65°F
Bold reds: 62 to 68°F
Before serving a white wine you think is too cold or a red wine you think is too warm, follow the Twenty Minute Rule. Twenty minutes before you serve your wines, remove the white from the refrigerator to warm it up a bit, and replace it with the red to cool that one off. The quickest way to chill a white wine is to submerge the bottle in a container of half ice and half water.
When to Let a Wine Breathe
Once you pop the cork, air is now that wine's best friend. Whether the wine is white, red, young, or old, a little air does a lot of good. After a few good swirls, the wine's aromas become more intense.
In young red wines with high tannins, exposure to air “softens” the tannins and makes the wine less bitter and astringent. You may even enjoy that young Napa Cab even more an hour after pouring. Older wines are more fragile, of course, but a little air can blow off any initial off-aromas and release the glories underneath.
Some people have interpreted breathing as simply uncorking the bottle in advance of pouring. The truth is wine can't breathe in the bottle. The neck is just too small to let enough air inside. Studies involving wine experts have demonstrated that no one can really tell the difference between a wine that's been breathing in the bottle for minutes versus one that's been breathing in the bottle for hours. If you really want to aerate your wine, pour it into your glass or use a proper decanter.
Oops! You somehow got fragments of cork into the bottle of wine. Or you discover, just minutes before serving, that your wine has sediment. There's no time to let things settle. You can filter the wine into a decanter through clean fabric such as muslin or through a paper coffee filter with no adverse effects.
Decanting Your Wine
A decanter is a thing, usually a glass carafe that can hold an entire bottle of wine. Decanting is a process, and aeration is simply one goal of that process. Decanting to remove sediment from older red wines is the other goal, and a more delicate process. Sediments consist of color and tannin molecules which have precipitated out of the wine over time.
To remove sediment successfully, first stand the bottle upright. Let it stand that way as long as possible so the sediment falls to the bottom of the bottle. A couple of days is ideal, but even thirty minutes is helpful. Remove the cork without disturbing the sediment.
With a candle or flashlight standing next to the decanter, slowly pour the wine in a steady stream into the decanter. The light should be focused below the neck of the bottle. That way you'll be able to see the sediment the exact moment it appears. That's your signal to stop pouring.
