Decanter carafes

Look at the base first. A wide, flat base gives the wine plenty of surface and therefore plenty of contact with air, which is exactly what a young red wine that is still closed needs. The 150 cl Air Sense for red wine and the 200 cl Invino are built for that. For an old wine you want as little aeration as possible, so you take a narrower 75 cl decanter with a straight shape.

Size comes next. A bottle holds 75 cl, so a decanter of that size fits exactly but leaves little room to swirl. If you want to open up a young wine quickly, take at least a litre. Also mind the neck: a wide one pours more easily and is easier to clean, a narrow one limits evaporation. Some models have an airtight stopper, such as the Mixology from Luigi Bormioli.

For a young red wine, twenty to thirty minutes in a wide decanter is enough; longer rarely adds anything and after a few hours you start losing fruit. Pour it over briskly, let the wine run down the wall and swirl the decanter once or twice. A wine that still smells closed after half an hour is not going to open up.

With an old wine it works differently. Stand the bottle upright for a day so the sediment settles at the bottom, pour it over in one steady movement and stop as soon as you see the first cloudiness in the bottle neck. A small light under the neck makes that moment visible. A sangria is fine to make in a roomy decanter too, and for a batch of stirred negroni a decanter with a stopper is handy.

A decanter does not go in the dishwasher: the neck is too narrow, the shape too irregular, and detergent leaves a matt haze on crystal glass that you can never remove again. Rinse straight after use with lukewarm water, without soap, and remove deposits with a long decanter brush or with a dash of vinegar left to stand for an hour.

Drying is the trickiest part. Let the decanter drain upside down on a drying stand, because on a tea towel the neck stays sitting in moisture and within a day you get a musty smell. Polish the outside with a lint-free cloth and hold the decanter by the belly while you do, not by the neck.

If you are looking for a carafe for water, juice or the table rather than for aeration, the overview of all carafes gives you the full picture. For spirits with a cut stopper the whiskey decanter is the right corner. If you have the decanter and are still missing the glasses, look at the red wine glasses or at the roomier large wine glasses. Because a narrow neck is out of reach for an ordinary brush, the glass brushes are more of a necessity here than a luxury.