Would you decant a white dessert wine? For how long?

[Eric Menchen]

I don't claim to know much about white dessert wines, but in my quest to learn more I bought some Jordan Riviere Russe Alexander Valley from 1982 and 1983. I was planning on opening one tomorrow. It has the color of a old Sauternes, and is 14.5% alcohol. Would you decant such a wine before serving it? If so, for how long?

[Roy Hersh]

Given the age and appellation, I say no to decanting this specific bottle or at most a splash double decant.

However, if it was a similarly aged bottle of Sauternes, I'd say to either decant it for a full hour or to let it open up in the glass.

The main difference between a white and red dessert wine ... in general, is the tannins ... softening them a bit is always good. However, like white wines in general, I find that decanting can help white dessert wines too. I had a top notch Meursault the other night and it was so much better with an hour in the decanter than the last one I opened and popped/poured.

That said, I doubt that anyone at the winery you mentioned, ever expected their dessert wine would be open a few decades later and certainly never created their wines for that type of cellaring. So, a v. short splash decant would probably not hurt it although I'd not even go as long as a full hour as the best part of that wine might be enjoyed in the early going.

[Eric Menchen]

Thanks for the feedback Roy. I pretty much followed your advice. There was no extended decant. Instead, after our meal I pulled the bottle from the fridge and poured into a tall decanter (not a ship's decanter with large surface area) then, and we started tasting it within 10 minutes. I didn't really notice much change with time over the next hour or two. I poured what was left into a half bottle and will see if it is any different later this week.

This is a bit of an oddball. As you suggest, I'm not sure they ever intended this for extensive aging. But apparently there are quite a few old bottles out there. I did some googling to see what I could find out about this, and I didn't find a lot of information, but I did find it listed on at least three different food-wine pairing set dinner menus at restaurants in the last couple of years.

I'm not sure how to score this one, but I thought it was wonderful and just bought the last bottle they had at Blicker Pierce Wagner.