Should you ever decant white wines?

Dear Dr. Vinny,

I never thought there was a reason to decant white wines, but I recently saw one being decanted in a restaurant. Why would you decant a white wine, and which benefit most from decanting?

—Michele, Fulshear, Texas

Dear Michele,

Whether or not to decant wine (and for how long) is an intensely personal choice, so don’t feel like you have to decant a certain wine just because someone says you should.

Likewise, if you want to decant a wine—be it red, white, sweet or even sparkling (yes, you can decant Champagne!)—I say go for it. (And don’t forget to check out our handy Decanting 101 guide before you do.) While it’s perfectly fine to let your wine open up in the glass, there are plenty of bottles, including many whites, that will benefit from the more vigorous aeration decanting provides.

You’re not alone, however, in thinking that whites don’t need to be decanted. I suspect there are two reasons why whites aren’t decanted more often. First, I think decanting can be intimidating, and it might seem a bit fussy for most occasions. As the person who usually ends up doing the dishes in my house, I might weigh if it’s the best choice unless I really think the bottle I’m opening needs some serious air.

But more than that, temperature control is harder to maintain when decanting, and white wines will be prone to warming up. That can be a good thing if your bottle is a bit too cold, but if your bottle is already at the ideal serving temperature, you might need to put the decanter on ice—which brings us back to the fussiness issue.

If you want to start playing with decanting whites, I’d start with full-bodied wines like Chardonnay. Just as with red wines, they’ll often become more expressive with exposure to air.

I asked Wine Spectator assistant tasting coordinator Larry Rubin, who probably decants more white wines than anyone I know, about his favorite bottles to decant. He pointed to premier cru and grand cru Burgundy and Chablis; Riesling, especially German Grosses Gëwachs, powerfully built Alsatian versions and Smaragd bottlings from the Wachau; concentrated Chenin Blancs; and muscular whites from the Northern and Southern Rhône. He also gave a pro tip to try decanting before you put the wine in the fridge, since wines open up more slowly at cooler temperatures.

Rubin added that decanting can really help whites open up and find their groove, just like with reds. “I regularly pour powerful whites that I’m opening a little too soon into a decanter to help them uncoil. With time in a decanter they become more fragrant, and textural components, like underlying bitterness or crunchy acidity, find their place in the wine’s total composition. From behind youthful tension, decanting reveals a more balanced personality.”

Unlike when decanting reds, there’s typically no need to separate the sediment from whites, which generally don’t produce sediment at all. The exception is tartrate crystals, which look like little pieces of glass or sand and sometimes fall to the bottom of the bottle. Just like red wine sediment, the crystals are harmless—not glass!—but if you want to avoid any sneaking into your wineglass, decanting is a sure bet.

—Dr. Vinny