Decanting Wines

Although older wines should be decanted to remove the sediment from the bottom of the bottle, I think that all new red wines (and maybe the better whites, too) should be "decanted" not to get rid of sediment, but to open up the young wines. In this way you are, in a few hours, adding years of bottle age. I have recently had several very young $10 to $15 bottles of red, that over the course of two to three hours of being opened, have evolved, smoothed out and added nuances and complexity. Whereas, the first glass in the first five minutes was closed, rough and uneventful.

So instead of "decanting", just splash the wine into any cheap decanter and let it stand for an hour. Your $10 wine will taste like a $20. Your $20 wine will taste like a $50! And the dinner guests will appreciate the fine wine you are serving. So go out and buy several $20 decanters. The ROI will be huge!