So how to properly serve an aged wine?
It’s necessary do some operations in sequence, not at the table but in the kitchen, even if no one forbids guests to follow them, on the contrary.
1) Place the bottle of wine in the basket a few hours before serving it, in an almost horizontal position. In this way the wine deposits will begin to rest on the lower side of the bottle and slowly slide to the bottom.
2) Just before decanting the wine, the bottle is uncorked without changing its position in the basket, the corkscrew is screwed and the cork is removed very slowly, without shaking or turning the bottle, so that the residues do not return to suspension.
3) After allowing the wine to stand open for a little longer, about half an hour, we can pour a small amount into our glass, bringing it closer to the neck of the lying bottle and slightly tilting the basket.
4) We sniff the wine in the glass and, if it does not show obvious olfactory defects, we can then pour it into the decanter to bring it closer.
5) Having eliminated the starting dose, we can finally transfer the wine. Approaching the neck of the decanter with the neck of the bottle, which will be slowly tilted to let the wine flow. Slowly it must be the password; it’s forbidden to slide it quickly or worse still to gurgl.
6) During this operation it is advisable to keep a source of light – a lightbulb or even a candle – near the bottle, so that you can observe the liquid inside it against the light and realize when it is about to end, in order to slow down and end the decanting before the last drops drag behind the residues deposited on the bottom.
7) Once the wine is decanted, we put the decanter on its feet and bring it to the table, together with the empty bottle and the stopper, which serve to show guests the label of what they are about to drink and the condition of conservation of the wine through good health.
8) Let’s wait a few minutes before proposing the wine, so that oxygen does its job and free aromas and gustatory notes that have long remained ‘compressed‘. Let’s taste the wine again and, if there are no defects, finally pour it into the glasses, clockwise and always slowly.
