As a reminder, I am working on the hypothesis that the main effect of allowing wine to breathe is a slight loss of complexity in the nose. I’ll relieve the suspense and say right now that this experiment confirmed the hypothesis (as did experiments nos. 2 and 3, at least as far as my own perceptions go).

This experiment was conducted 20 May 2017. I used a wine that is often said to benefit from air, a red burgundy.  The methodology was the same as experiment number 3. The wine breathed for 3.5 hours, whereas in previous experiments it has been more like 6. (I realize I should be recording these numbers.)

My three glasses had wine from the decanter, decanter, and bottle, respectively. Here are my notes (written before the reveal):

ddb at first because the right one seemed bit funky on the nose

second thoughts the middle seems slightly spicier, so maybe dbd

right one seems to have a fruitier palate
no difference in tannins or acids

left two more floral on the nose

going with first instinct

This result is consistent with my theory that breathing causes the nose to lose complexity, although in this case some might find the unmasked floral character of the decanted wine more appealing. It is also consistent with the observation that the effect is quite small; note the uncertainty and wavering.

By the way, my friend and colleague Phil Daro sent me a link to this blog post, which in turn has a link to this 1999 article from the New York Times. Reading them almost made me think I don’t need to bother with any more breathing experiments. They confirm my preconceptions. Except Science! Let’s go from preconceptions to statistical evidence. It will take a lot of breathing experiments to do that. The things I do for Science.

Interesting addendum: my daughter wandered in about an hour after the bottle had been opened, and wanted to try the experiment. She identified the configuration correctly (dbd). Her reasons were entirely from the nose: she thought the middle wine had an aroma that was more mushroomy and gamey, whereas the other two she said were more metallic. Possibly my “funky” had evolved into her “mushroomy and gamey” in one hour. Maybe I need to do an experiment with multiple decanting periods.

This was my first breathing experiment using the Coravin, on May 4, 2017. The methodology is the same as before, except that it uses one bottle instead of two. I poured half the bottle into a decanter 6 hours in advance using the Coravin, and left the other half corked under its blanket of argon. I used a Barbaresco because of this tasting note on CellarTracker, which says that “Over an hour or so, pepper and astringent tannins on the palate overcame the fruit.” This suggests a different hypothesis from mine, that breathing causes the nose to lose complexity. Here the author describes a change in the palate.

The only experimental subjects were me and my wife. I rolled the die for her and she for me. Here are the results:

We both chose the odd wine out correctly, and I correctly identified it as the wine from the bottle. I tried using both the nose and the palate: the third wine had a spicier more complex nose, so according to my original hypothesis it was the wine from the bottle. On the other hand, I fancied at first that the second wine had less fruit on the palate, which would have suggested a configuration of dbd. After a few sips I lost that difference so went with my first instinct. More evidence for my hypothesis.

But! My wife described the difference between her wines so:

No. 1 is different, sharper and more distinctive, with more acid, whereas the other two seem a little more soft.

This seems somewhat consistent with the tasting note on CellarTracker, in that it can be seen as describing a loss of fruit with breathing. Note that I described the same thing in my very first breathing experiment using this methodology. There, however, I also described the nose of the decanted wine as spicier and more aromatic. Which contradicts my hypothesis.

Obviously, more experimentation is necessary. I think I need to tighten up the descriptors a bit and apply them more consistently. For future experiments I will limit the descriptors to more complex/less complex for the nose and more (fruit, tannin, acid)/less (fruit, tannin, acid) for the palate.