Gifts, Glasses and Gluggables

The Daily Rant week of 12/7/11

GDP is back with more. This week he's looking at great glassware, with tips on what to buy and what to shun, unless you're a glutton for punishment!

A Glassware Guide

Check out the pros and cons of various wine glasses. See my recommendations for the best and which turn out to be worst.

Drinking Challenges

Find out how the design and shape of your wine glass's bowl can have some unintended consequences.

Decanting

Check it out as I decent a wine off its sediment, in the dark! That's just to help make things a bit more visibile, but you can learn a bit of technique here.

Slideshow View

Comments

barrybd

836026 0

In order to maximize the amount of wine decanted, I stop short of the first sign of sediment approaching the neck and then use an unbleached (brown) coffee filter and a funnel to complete the process. The coffee filter adds nothing to the taste of the wine and a only minimal amount of wine is lost in the filter. If you are doing a last minute service and haven't had time to let the bottle stand long before decanting, you can do the entire pour through the filter without problem.

Another decanting method I learned from Harry Waugh in the 1970's is to use a length of clear flexible plastic tubing (similar to those used in an aquarium filter system) ,thoroughly cleaned. Place the decanter on the floor with one end of the tubing inserted to the bottom and insert the other end of the tubing into the wine bottle, about an inch into the wine. Blow into the wine bottle and the wine will begin to syphon into the decanter. Slowly move the tube end down the bottle ahead of the wine surface level. With a light source (flaslight) on the other side of the bottle, you can track where the tube end is relative to the sediment and you can retract the tube just before reaching the sediment. This method also provides minimal wine loss. Flush the tube with clean cold water after use and store coiled in the freezer for future use.

I agree with GDP about the benefit of double decanting and I do so with any of these methods.

Dec 12, 2011 at 1:36 PM