Soiree Decanter Review Video Transcript
Written By: Anonymous on Mon, Dec 4th 2006
Brian Freedman: Welcome to the Classic Wines Minute brought to you by ClassicWines.com; I am your host Brian Freedman, and today is part of our Wine Education Series. We're here in the Wine Room in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and we'll be talking about decanting wines.
Now, you notice we don't have any decanters on the table today, reason being, we're trying out a new device, the Soiree in bottle decanter.
A lot of times, people feel a little funny about decanting wines just because, I don't know, there might be a perceived pretension about it - I disagree, but I am just reporting on the perception here. It takes up a lot of room on the table, and the truth is, with a decanter, you oftentimes have to really agitate the wine to expose it to as much oxygen as possible. Sometimes you just don't want to deal with that.
So, we're trying this device. Three wines today, our first one is the Shipwreck Chardonnay which is made by one of the customers here in the Wine Room.
I got to tell you; they make good wine here. Classic Chardonnay, melon, fig, little tropical fruit, and some bit of smoke there on the end; it's a really well-rounded, well-balanced wine. Frankly, I think it's very good as it is. I am curious to see how it is once we decant it.
So, I mean this is neat; the wine does absolutely coat all sides of this, the little dimples here break it up even more, increasing the surface area. You can see the bubbles here on the side of the glass, so we know more oxygen has gotten in.
It's amazing; it's just a more complete wine; it's more well-rounded, it's more balanced, it's a great wine to start with, but there's just more nuance to it when we bring more oxygen into it.
Wine number two, we have the Chateau Haut-Ballet 2001, Lalande de Pomerol. Again, this really is oxygenating it. Nice thing is, you don't have to deal with drips. So, I am hoping, I am hoping because I don't want to wait another hour or three in order to enjoy this wine.
I am getting more ripe fruit now; I am getting more chocolate. There's just more character going on there. It's a more complete wine experience.
For this last one, wine number three -- I am not even going to bother trying it on some. This is the Mollydooker "The Boxer" 2006 South Australia Shiraz - 16% alcohol. Just because the wine is young does not mean you can't decant it. In fact a lot of times, the younger ones, they benefit most from decanting. So, we give this a lot of air; I've had this before right out of the bottle. It's good, little scary.
Sweet fruit, wild strawberries, rolled in chocolate and dipped in coffee. I mean, this is a blockbuster wine, but I got to tell you, I haven't enjoyed it as much when I haven't decanted it in some way shape or form. So, the truth of the matter is, I think the lesson today is this; bring oxygen to your wines, whether it's young white wines, older red wines, younger high alcohol wines -- and a device like the Soiree, it's a lot less expensive than the fancy hand-blown decanters, and it takes up less room. Honestly, I got to tell you, I think it works.
From all of us here at ClassicWines.com, thank you to the Wine Room in Cherry Hill, thank you to Soiree. I am now drinking 16% alcohol wine. Cheers.
