You go to a fancy restaurant and order a bottle of red wine. The tuxedoed waiter calls over the sommelier who takes the order, brings the bottle, opens and pours it.
Then, you notice there’s a lot more fuss being made at a nearby table. With great ceremony, the sommelier is decanting the wine, and pouring the entire bottle into a glass carafe on the side table.
So, you think, what’s the matter with my wine? Chopped liver?
As Hour Detroit’s chief restaurant critic and wine writer Chris Cook has noticed, decanting wines--and when to do it--seems to be something of a mystery these days.