Give your wine a breath of fresh air with these party-ready carafes and decanting vessels.
For most meals or casual evenings at home, pouring wine directly from the bottle suffices while having a glass or two. But for dinner parties, brunches, and cocktail attire-worthy soirees, serving wine in a decanter, usually made of glass or crystal, can give your best bottles an added boost of flavor and drinkability. While bottled wine is already sealed inside glass and behind a cork or a screw top until it’s meant to be enjoyed, giving wines (especially older or tannic reds) a breath of fresh air by pouring into a glass decanter or carafe can bring it to life.
Here are the reasons you should decant wine, according to Food & Wine Executive Wine Editor Ray Isle:
- It’s old. Older wines tend to have sediment accumulated at the bottom of the bottle. Pour these wines slowly into a decanter and you’ll avoid getting those gunky bits in your glass when you serve it. Plus, many decanters have a bulbous lower half and skinnier neck that further keeps floaters from creeping out.
- It needs oxygen. To get the fullest expression “as the wine interacts with air, the aromas come out, the flavors blossom, it makes the wine more delicious,” Isle says. Use a confident, heavy-flow pour to expose as much of your wine to the air as possible, as it travels from bottle to decanter.