January 29, 2022 by Alan Haenni
Decanting wine is pouring wine from the bottle into another container. Although not so common at home, decanting wine does have its place for three main reasons, first, to fine-tune the aesthetic on the table, second, to aerate young wines (it helps them open up), and third, to separate sediment from older wines. The latter is the main reason most people decant wine.
Sediment in wine is made up of two things, tartrate crystals, which some call “wine diamonds”, and organic matter, including yeast cells , which I call “gunk”, but more mature people call “ lees ”.