One question I am often asked is what is the best way to serve older vintage wines?
To really answer this we need to go back to when the bottle arrives with you. If you're intending to drink it within a few days then don't put it in a rack, but put it somewhere safe and upright so the sediment will start to settle. If you're not going to drink it for a while then best to put horizontal in a rack or in a cupboard (leave it in the delivery box for extra protection). Stand it up three days before you are going to open it.
Next up will be opening it which we have covered that in an earlier blog post which you can access here.
Once open the wine will need to be decanted to remove the liquid from the sediment. This is done by slowly tilting the bottle so that the wine pours slowly into the decanter as smoothly as possible. Keeping an eye on the wine in the neck of the bottle and stopping decanting when you see the sediment appear. Lots has been written and there are divided opinions as to when you should decant older vintage wines and we will cover this in a later blog post.
In the meantime here is a short video of me decanting a vintage wine.