{"id":840,"date":"2018-09-03T10:33:11","date_gmt":"2018-09-03T14:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rdilauro.com\/CarpeVino\/?p=840"},"modified":"2018-12-11T10:32:59","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T15:32:59","slug":"breathing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rdilauro.com\/CarpeVino\/2018\/09\/03\/breathing\/","title":{"rendered":"Breathing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Why do we want\u00a0 our wines to breath?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the simplest of terms,\u00a0Wine that has had a brief exposure to airis\u00a0positive since it allows\u00a0wine to breathe\u00a0<\/em>similar to stretching its legs after being cooped up in the bottle for so many years. This exposure has a positive effect on the\u00a0wine\u00a0after 25 to 30 minutes. Intensely tannic or younger reds may need up to a few hours.<\/p>\n

What is it?\u00a0<\/strong>Its simply allowing the wine to come into contact with the air.\u00a0 \u00a0This oxidation transfer can always be a two edged sword.\u00a0 \u00a0Too little, you have a harsh wine, too much, and the wine may be spoiled.<\/p>\n

Which wines?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>I have always found this to be true with red wines.\u00a0 \u00a0Almost any red wine will benefit from some time breathing.\u00a0 \u00a0Sometimes, it can be as little as 30 minutes, and with some Italian wines, I have let it breathe for over 3 hours!\u00a0 The major reason behind allowing wines to breathe is to attempt to tame those wild tannins.<\/p>\n

Tannin<\/b>\u00a0is a textural element that makes\u00a0wine\u00a0taste dry.\u00a0Tannin<\/b>\u00a0is a naturally occurring polyphenol found in plants, seeds, bark, wood, leaves, and fruit skins. … As a characteristic of\u00a0wine<\/b>,\u00a0tannin<\/b>\u00a0adds both bitterness and astringency, as well as complexity.<\/em><\/p>\n

Some wines have what I call wild tannins.\u00a0 They are harsh, bold and very noticeable.\u00a0 Its what gives you that bitterness and puckering feeling as you sip on the wine.\u00a0 \u00a0Allowing air to come in contact with the wine, allows these tannins to mellow out.\u00a0 \u00a0I like to describe this process as taking a wild young brat and turning it around to be a gentle aging grandparent.<\/p>\n

There are many different ways to accomplish this breathing.\u00a0 \u00a0I have always preferred the old fashion natural way.\u00a0 \u00a0That is, just withdrawing the cork and letting the wine stand!<\/p>\n

Today, in restaurants, and many home tastings, people tend to get impatient.
\nSo there are a number of different ways to speed<\/em> up this breathing process.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Carafe\u00a0\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

With this method, the most air can be exposed to the wine as quickly as possible.\u00a0 This can reduce the amount of time you normally need to let a wine breathe by almost 50%.\u00a0 There are so many different styles and types of carafes, but they all serve the same purpose.<\/p>\n

Decanting<\/em>\u00a0is a process similar to pouring wine into a decanter, except, the purpose is to clarify or remove sediment or particles from a bottle of wine.\u00a0 This could have happened from a cork breaking into the bottle of wine, or from an old wine that has a lot of sediment.\u00a0 The sediment is not bad for you, but its appearance may turn a few people off.\u00a0 There is an art to decanting.\u00a0 You generally tilt the carafe vessel and slowly pour the wine.\u00a0 Always looking for any particles or sediment.\u00a0 Some people, use a candle behind the bottle neck, to spot particles easier.\u00a0 \u00a0Even some people, take the lazy way out and use a cheese cloth to strain out any particles or sediment.\u00a0 That works, but boy, is it so\u00a0 much of an un-wine thing to do!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Aerators\u00a0 \u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/strong>Once again, the main purpose is to allow as much oxygen into the wine.\u00a0 Using any one of the many different aerators accomplishes this.\u00a0 \u00a0I have found that using this method, the wine that is poured into the glass feels like it has been breathing for at least an hour.\u00a0 \u00a0So, this is a quick easy method to get those tannins tamed!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

During one of my wine tastings, I ran an experiment.\u00a0 I had a very young Italian \u00a0Montepulciano d’Abruzzo<\/em>.\u00a0 \u00a0A very harsh tannin wine to start with.<\/p>\n

First<\/em>, I poured a little into\u00a0 a glass and let everyone taste it and had them provide me with their responses.\u00a0 \u00a0Most of them felt the wine was too difficult to drink.<\/p>\n

Second<\/em>, I poured some of the wine through an aerator.\u00a0 The people were quite amazed that the same wine tasted so much better and it was only minutes after opening the bottle.<\/p>\n

Third<\/em>, I poured some of the same wine into a carafe and let them taste it 30 minutes later.\u00a0 All of the people noticed the difference and began to enjoy the wine.<\/p>\n

Still, being an old fashion wine buff from the 1960s and 1970’s, the only method I really use is\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

pulling the cork and letting the wine breathe naturally.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why do we want\u00a0 our wines to breath? In the simplest of terms,\u00a0Wine that has had a brief exposure to airis\u00a0positive since it allows\u00a0wine to breathe\u00a0similar to stretching its legs after being cooped up in the bottle for so many years. This exposure has a positive effect on the\u00a0wine\u00a0after 25 to 30 minutes. Intensely tannic … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Breathing”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wine-details"],"views":211,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdilauro.com\/CarpeVino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdilauro.com\/CarpeVino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdilauro.com\/CarpeVino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdilauro.com\/CarpeVino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdilauro.com\/CarpeVino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rdilauro.com\/CarpeVino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3173,"href":"https:\/\/rdilauro.com\/CarpeVino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840\/revisions\/3173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rdilauro.com\/CarpeVino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdilauro.com\/CarpeVino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rdilauro.com\/CarpeVino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}