Volanic white wines, when to decant white wines, Decanter
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Does white wine benefit from being decanted? Decanter consultant editor Steven Spurrier gives his view.

Ask Decanter: When to decant white wine

Steven Spurrier, for Decanter, replies: There are three reasons for decanting:

  1. to allow the wine to breathe
  2. to separate it from any deposit
  3. because a decanted wine enhances the anticipation of pleasure.

White wines seldom throw a deposit, except sometimes tartaric crystals, and because they don’t have tannins the need for aeration is rarely necessary. So while the main reason is aesthetic, decanting should please the palate as much as the eye.

One problem is that white wines need ice buckets more than they do decanters, so it is mostly older whites that are decanted, where the cold temperature is less important, even for mature sweet wines which will be showing layered complexity.

The Bordelais often decant their dry whites as well as their reds; the Bugundians never decant; Hugh Johnson decants old Riesling; and a restaurant I knew in Paris always served Champagne en carafe. I would decant young and old white Rhônes and mature Alsace Rieslings, and both at the last minute.

Steven Spurrier is Decanter’s globe-trotting consultant editor.

Steven Spurrier
Steven Spurrier
Decanter Magazine, Consultant Editor
Decanter’s consultant editor Steven Spurrier joined the wine trade in London in 1964 and later moved to Paris where he bought a wine shop in 1971, and then opened L’Academie du Vin, France’s first private wine school in 1973. Spurrier staged the historic 1976 blind tasting between wines from California and France, the Judgment of Paris, and in the 1980s he wrote several wine books and created the Christie’s Wine Course with then senior wine director Michael Broadbent, a veteran Decanter columnist. In 1988 Spurrier returned to the UK to focus on writing and consultancy, with his clients including Singapore Airlines. He has won several awards, including Le Personalité de l’Année (oenology) 1988 for services to French wine and the Maestro Award in honour of California wine legend André Tchelistcheff (2011) and is president of the Circle of Wine Writers as well as founding the Wine Society of India. He also produced his own wine, Bride Valley Brut, from his vines in Dorset.