I suggest that you first read “when should one decant a wine” before reading this article.

Now I know that you have seen wine decanted in many different ways, from carefully pouring the wine into the decanter or carafe to the wine host that turns the bottle up side down and dumps the wine without restraint into the decanter (I call it the Slam Dunk method).

Well you can do both, not just with any wines and the reason are the following:

Traditional method:

Your older finer wine, which has been patiently waiting judgment day, has probably formed plenty of sediments through out the years. For these older wines, it is recommended to stand the bottle upright a day or two before to let the sediments settle to the bottom.  Open the bottle carefully so as not to stir the sediments and make sure your decanter is clean and does not smell of stale air. Should you have a decanting cradle, place the bottle in the cradle, light the candle and remember that once you start pouring, do not stop until you see the sediments getting too close to the neck. We do not want to stir the sediments in this process as you will get less wine out of the bottle. Should you not have a decanting cradle, use a funnel (glass preferable) and light up a candle or have a backlight ready so that you can see through the bottle. Make sure that the candle is not directly under the bottle as it will darken the bottle and produce unwanted smoke. With a steady hand, pour the wine into the funnel or decanter,  should you feel that you do not need a funnel as mentioned above.  Once you see the sediment getting close to the bottle neck, stop. Let the wine rest for a bit (30-60 mins.) and serve.

My personal method for old vintage wines:

I start like the traditional process but a week in advance. I get my bottle from my cellar, let it set in an upright position for 2 days (away from light in general), open the bottle, place it on the cradle, light the candle and pour it in the decanter. I then wash the bottle, find a new cork if the one I just removed is too damaged, funnel all the wine but one small glass back into the now clean bottle, and spray inert aerosol gas (Private Preserve) in the bottle and put the cork back on. I now let the bottle settle in an upright position until I am ready to serve it in a few days. You might ask why would one do such a thing? I do this for two reasons: The first is to allow the wine to clear up even more, settling the smaller sediments which may have been stirred up during handling. The second and most important to me is to taste the wine for any faults. I would hate to find out on the big day that the wine was actually faulty and ruin the entire experience. And I can assure you that when you invite wine lovers to sample a special wine or wines and that they have been looking forward to it all week, you can down right ruin the event. Just shows you how much I really love fine wines.

Slam Dunk method:

This method is used on younger wines with no visible sediments to aerate the wine by almost breaking it up. This is a technique that I would use if I had to serve young wines with big tannins, which are still immature and closed up. I would then let the wine set in the decanter for at least an hour or two.  Note:You can now buy aerating gadgets which open up the wine even faster without having to dump the wine into the decanter. These gadgets do the trick.

Finally one last word of advice, when buying a decanter, make sure that it is functional and easy to clean. I was offered a beautiful decanter, which I never use as it takes me forever to clean and when pouring, the last ½ of a glass is wasted due to its design.

Cheers!