Decant a young red with real structure for thirty minutes to ninety. Decant an old red off its sediment and drink it fairly quickly. Leave most whites alone. How long depends on how much tannin and oak the wine carries, not on how old it is.
That is the answer. The rest of this is how to work out which of those three a bottle is, using numbers we publish on every wine we make.
What decanting actually does
Pouring wine out of its bottle and into something wider does two different jobs, and most advice runs them together.
It leaves the sediment behind. Older reds and anything bottled with minimal filtration throw a deposit, and nobody wants it in the last glass. That job is about the pour, not about time.
It also puts air into the wine. A young red with firm tannin and time in new oak is tight when you open it. Air loosens it. That job is entirely about time, and it is the one people get wrong in both directions.
How long to decant wine depends on structure, not age
A four-year-old wine that spent eighteen days on its skins and twenty months in barrel needs more air than a six-year-old wine that spent twelve days and twelve months. Age tells you about the fruit. Skin contact and oak tell you about the frame, and it is the frame that air works on.
That is useful because both numbers are published on every one of our wine pages, so you can work it out yourself rather than guess.
Our wines, and how long we would give each one
| Wine | Days on skins | Time in barrel | We would decant |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot | 12 | 12 months French oak | 30 to 45 minutes |
| Syrah | 11 | 14 months, 10% new | 45 minutes to an hour |
| Cabernet Sauvignon | 14 | 16 months French oak | About an hour |
| Conclusion | 18 | 20 months, 35% new | 90 minutes, and it will take more |
| Kottabos Chenin Blanc Skin Contact | 5, whole-bunch | 10 months older neutral oak | 20 to 30 minutes, kept cool |
The skin contact and barrel figures are our own cellar records for the current vintages as at September 2026, and each one is published on that wine’s page. The decanting times are our recommendation, not a rule, and the wine in front of you always outranks a table.
The pattern is worth seeing on its own. More days on skins and more new oak means more to soften, so more time. Conclusion sits at the top of that range for a reason: eighteen days of skin contact and twenty months in barrel, a third of it new. The Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot sits at the bottom of it, and that is by design rather than by accident.
You do not need a decanter
A decanter is a nice object and it is not the point. What the wine wants is surface area and a bit of turbulence on the way in.
- A glass jug or a water carafe does the same job. So does a clean teapot.
- Pour from a height so the wine breaks as it lands. That single splash is worth roughly the first fifteen minutes of standing.
- No jug at all? Pour the glasses you are about to drink, leave them ten minutes, and swirl. A wine glass is a very small decanter.
- Tipping the bottle upright and hoping is not decanting. The surface at the neck is the size of a coin.
If the wine is old enough to have thrown a deposit, that is the one case where the vessel matters less than the technique. Stand the bottle up for a day first, then pour slowly and steadily in one movement, and stop when you see the sediment reach the shoulder.
Should you decant white wine?
Usually not. A Sauvignon Blanc or a Blended White is built on aromatics that air disperses rather than develops. Open it, pour it, drink it cold.
The exception is a white made like a red. Our Kottabos Chenin Blanc Skin Contact spends five days on its skins as whole bunches, which gives it grip that a conventional white does not have. Twenty minutes in a jug settles that texture down. Keep it cool while it sits, because a skin-contact white that warms up loses more than it gains.
Can you decant wine for too long?
Yes, and it is easier to do than most people expect.
Air is a one-way process. It softens a young wine and then it flattens it, and there is no way back. A wine with ten years on it has already done most of that work in the bottle, so it has far less in reserve. An old wine can be magnificent for twenty minutes and tired by the hour.
Taste as you go
The decanting table above gets you close.
Trust me, your own palate closes the gap.
- Take a small pour from the decanter when you start, and another every twenty minutes.
- Take each one fresh, because a glass left standing aerates far faster than the jug it came from: it will open and tire on its own clock and tell you nothing about the wine still sitting in the decanter.
Three or four pours in, you will taste the moment it comes together.
Do that with the same wine a few times and you will know it better than any table can tell you, which is one of the quieter arguments for buying six of one wine rather than one of six.