How long does it take for red wine to be sober

Chinese people like to drink baijiu, which is not only an important drink but also a culture. Westerners’ love for red wine is like the Chinese’s infatuation with white wine. Compared with white wine, the culture of red wine is also very profound. Decanting is a unique drinking procedure for red wine. Its purpose is to allow the red wine to combine with air to produce oxidation, making the taste more mellow. There is a science to the time it takes to decant red wine; it should not be too long or too short.

1. Not all wines need to be decanted. Many people tend to drink wine directly after opening the bottle, but they always find that good wine does not taste good. When wine is sealed with a cork, or in a closed oak barrel or a dark wine cellar, it is easy for the wine to develop odors such as hydrogen sulfide, sulfur, and SO2 because it has less contact with oxygen.

2. The cheaper the wine, the less it needs to be decanted. Wines with a retail price of RMB 100 or less are ready to drink, so there is no need to bother with decanting. For more expensive wines, such as those priced at RMB 1,000 or more, you need to judge the maturity of the wine based on the year, and thus determine the decanting time.

3. The moment the red wine is poured from the bottle into the decanter, the decanting process begins, and the decanting time ranges from 5 minutes to 2 hours. Generally, the decanting time for young red wine is about 1 hour, while some high-tannin red wines require longer decanting time.

4. Generally speaking, the quality of red wine changes rapidly and unpredictably when oxidized by air. The longer the wine is exposed to air, the worse its texture will deteriorate. If the wine is decanted for too long, the aroma of the wine will disappear without a trace.

5. For full-bodied red wine, if it is stored for too short a period of time, the tannin taste will be particularly strong. In this case, the wine must be opened at least two hours in advance to allow the wine to fully contact with the air to increase the aroma and accelerate maturation. Maturation period wine should be brewed at least half an hour to an hour in advance, so that the wine will have a full-bodied taste and a mellow aroma.