Should I Let Wine Breathe?

Some wine drinkers declare that a red wine should be allowed to ‘breathe’ in the bottle before it is poured. Frankly, this doesn’t do much to improve the wine.

The surface area of the wine in the bottle neck is so small that hardly any oxygen can reach the wine in the hour or two in which it is left standing.

If you really do want to oxygenate the wine, decant it by pouring it gently down the side of a glass decanter.

Some older red wines develop a sediment at the bottom (or side, if the bottle has been stored lying down) of the bottle.

This is not a sign of any defect, but if you prefer to keep the sediment out of the glass, you can also pour the wine carefully into a decanter, leaving the last bit, with the sediment, in the bottle.

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