What Does It Mean To Let Wine 'Breathe?'

You may be expanding your drinking horizons into wine. While it can be intimidating, what with all of the snobby language around wine tasting, drinking wine can be fun. Let go of conventional ideas about wine — you can pair your white wine with Doritos or pour a glass of red wine while eating BBQ. But first, depending on the wine, don't forget to let it breathe.

Letting wine "breathe" means, in its most basic form, that one opens the bottle and then leaves it out for a while before pouring the first glass. The process is officially known as aeration. This helps boost the flavors of the wine and evaporates sulfites that could impact the taste. Introducing air into an uncorked wine bottle softens the tannins left over from wine production by oxidizing them, helping stave off any bitterness the tannins could introduce to the drink.

Not all wines need to breathe. White wines have considerably fewer tannins than reds, meaning they don't need to be oxidized for a good amount of flavor to come through. That said, aerating a white or a red for at least thirty minutes will yield a more aromatic wine with a more appetizing taste.

While you can aerate a bottle of wine by simply opening it, it's a less efficient way to do it, as the narrow neck of the bottle makes it more difficult for the drink inside to get sufficient exposure to air. An alternate method is to pour some wine into a large glass and then swirl the wine in the glass, as a glass has more surface area for the drink to interact with air. This allows you to enjoy the wine in ten to twenty minutes' time.

There are also two kitchen tools available that help expedite the breathing process. Decanters like this Godinger Winder Decanter Carafe provide a wider surface area for the wine to breathe and can hold an entire bottle. Wine aerators, such as the Vintorio Wine Aerator Pourer, attach to the top of the wine bottle and, depending on the product, either manually or electronically function by generating bubbles in the wine as it is poured, aerating the drink instantly.