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Asti Wine Consultants	2020-08-11 18:21:14	8,966 Views	View on YouTube View Channel

Letting Wine Breathe: How It Works and Why It's Important

The whole concept of aerating or breathing wine is simply to maximize your wine’s exposure to the surrounding air. By allowing the wine to mingle and mingle with air the wine will typically warm up and open up the aromas of the wine soften and mellow the flavor profile a bit and should improve the overall flavor characteristics.

Typically red wines are the wines that benefit the most from breathing before serving. However there are select white wines that also improve with a little air exposure. In general most wines will improve with just 15-20 minutes of air time. However if the wine is young with high tannins it will need more time to aerate before it can be enjoyed. For example a young mid-aged or higher-aged California Cabernet Sauvignon will likely need about an hour to properly aerate and soften its flavor. Not that you can’t drink it as soon as it’s uncorked but to put its best foot forward you’ll need to give the wine a little more time to breathe. Mature wines (8+ years) are a different story altogether. These wines benefit the most from decanting and then only have a small window of aeration before the flavor profiles begin to deteriorate.

Some people mistakenly believe that simply uncorking a bottle of wine and letting it sit for a while is enough to aerate the wine. This method is futile because there simply isn’t enough space (i.e. surface area) at the top of the bottle for sufficient air to come into contact with the wine. So what’s a wine lover to do? You have two “breathable” options: a decanter or a wine glass.