My wine breathes, has a nose, body, and legs, but no pulse!
(Part 1, by Raymond R. Wells, Ed.D.)
No, I don’t need a defibrillator. And you don’t need a doctorate to understand these terms as applied to wine.
Letting a wine breathe:
About the only time it is necessary to let a wine breathe is when it has unpleasant aromas (like sulfur or burnt-match smells) that “blow off” or decrease with exposure to air. Even then, simply removing the cork from the bottle exposes only about a nickel-sized area of the wine to air – worthless! If you really want to aerate a wine, decant it (pour it into a larger container). However, you don’t need an expensive decanter – just use a clean glass pitcher, or my favorite, a clean chemist’s Erlenmeyer flask, 1000 mL or larger.
Decanting can also be done to remove sediment from older wines by placing a light behind the bottle and carefully pouring until you see the sediment getting close to the neck of the bottle. However, I prefer to pour carefully and slowly return the bottle to an upright position. Then, when about half a glass of wine and sludge remains in the bottom of the bottle, I pour the dregs through a coffee filter pushed part-way into a glass. (We frugal wine geeks hate to waste good wine.)
Some people believe that young red wines should be allowed to breathe. Although it is true that some wines will “open up” with exposure to air, I prefer to let the wine develop in the glass. I like to slowly experience a wine’s first impressions, any developing aromas, and any changes due to air exposure over the time it is in my glass. Of course, that assumes that it spends any time in the glass. That is the best reason I can think of to use a very large wine glass; you can pour in half of a bottle, have room to swirl and for the aromas to concentrate above the wine, and (if savored slowly) you get to experience its evolution in the glass over the entire evening. You might find that a wine that made a poor first impression develops into something wonderful, or makes a great match with certain foods. You wouldn’t want to miss anything!
In wine, truth and health!