Guides
Oxygenation of wine
Wine oxygenates better... when oxygen is actually added
Oxygenation of wine is the difference between a good wine and a great wine – and it's not enough to leave the bottle and drink for an hour after opening. A decanter, decanter or decanter can be your best partner when you need the wine to open up completely and taste like the nectar of the gods.
We've touched on that before. Wine must be oxygenated. And lots of air is needed. Therefore, Uncle Erling's well-intentioned advice to leave the bottle on the kitchen table for an hour after opening is a small step on the way, but you are far from the goal. If you want to be able to get all the aspects of the wine's aroma and the underlying notes up to your nose when you take a deep breath over your glass, one and a half square centimeters is simply too little space to give anything other than the surface of the bottle sufficient oxygen.
In reality, there is not much magic at all about enjoying a good bottle of wine. If we assume that oxygenation is mandatory - and it is! – your preparation can be set up as three easy steps:
1. Find out what the wine is like – a light young wine should be cooler than an older and complex wine.
2. Open the bottle and pour out the contents. If you have a decanting plug or a vinyl filter, this is where you should use it. Feel free to pour into a decanter for the best oxygenation.
3. Swirl the contents around in the glass, take a deep breath of the aromas and taste.
Okay, we stuffed a lot of little sub-divisions into the points, but really it's not that hard. You just need to practice a little. For example, you can be guided to hold the glass correctly and slurp the wine by our skilled sommelier. You can also read on and get a little more advice on ways to oxygenate your wine.
Oxygenation takes place by decanting or decanting the wine
There are many ways you can oxygenate your wine. The very best is done using a decanter. Carafes have a large surface at the bottom and a relatively wide neck, where the oxygen can freely come down and mix with the wine. Young wines in particular can benefit from resting in a decanter for over an hour, so that they open up and release more flavor and aroma. Especially the young and cheap wines from the supermarket can really benefit from being poured into a decanter.
The simplest method to oxygenate wine is to pour a large glass. And here we don't just mean a glass in a decent size, where your nose can just be at the top - no, a properly large red wine glass, of which you can find many beautiful versions here at Wineandbarrels. Here you can really feel the wine from the large surface, and with the long stem between the index finger and thumb you can also give the wine in the glass a good whirl so that the contents are really aerated!
Are you the impatient type?
If you can't wait a whole hour between each glass of wine, you can use a decanter stopper when you pour the wine into the glass. If your wine is already tempered, you just have to spin the glass around a few times, and voila, the first mouthful is ready! Good wine experiences are something you should collect. We like best to prepare to make the starting point so good that minimal work is needed to get the good experience out of every wine we enjoy.
A decanting stopper like Vagnby's 7-in-1 decanting stopper just makes life a little easier with its seven (!) functions. Most importantly, once you put the cork on your wine bottle, it automatically oxygenates the wine as you pour. It is so much easier to get the taste and aroma to sit right in the cupboard with such a smart decanting stopper.
A vinyl filter can be a really fun tool
If you are patient and calm, there is another method for pouring the wine. Here we are looking at a niche solution that is guaranteed not to be for everyone – the vinyl ter. The manual vinilter is truly a work of art in itself. The principle of a vinyl still is that it oxygenates the wine either by sitting on the bottle, or by pouring the wine into the glass or decanter through it.
Laguiole has created a complete set that will either give you the sense of adventure in your eyes or extinguish the glow in them, because it just takes a little extra time and a steady hand to pour a bottle of wine that way. If you put the vinyl terer on top of the carafe, however, there is a guarantee that your red wine has received just as much oxygen as it should.