Why are you supposed to let a bottle of wine “breathe” after opening it?
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Some compounds that contribute unwanted flavors will go away as oxygen reacts with the wine. Specifically, things that contribute astringency (the same way a strong tea would be astringent) and a “hot” alcohol taste. These compounds are in much higher concentrations in red wine, which is why we don’t typically aerate whites and roses.
Wine is made of lots of aromatic compounds, each with different thresholds in which human senses can actually detect them. When you first open a wine they all hit you all at once, a bit like pressing all the keys down on a piano at once resulting in lots of “dissonance” from an imbalance of aromas overpowering each other, and others which are undesirable. It depends on the wine and age and what you’re trying to achieve from either decanting or leaving a wine open before drinking, but letting it settle for a bit allows some of those compounds to dissipate leaving the desired and more pleasant “resonance”. It doesn’t apply the same way in all situations, for example Pinot Noir being a lighter more delicate wine most people will never decant, whereas full-bodied wines can benefit from letting it “breathe”.
In practice it makes very little difference if you are just pulling the cork and leaving it in the bottle. The wines surface area with air is just the neck diameter which is tiny.
Buy a very expensive wine in a restaurant and they will decant and aerate it. This will allow more of the wines aromas to release and importantly soften the tanins.
This are the same reasons people swill wine in the glass
There’s tons of reasons all which vary depending on the type of wine itself and how much air you are adding.
1 balance: one of the major aspects of a wine is to get it in good balance , this means once it’s been the glass the smells and tastes should complement each other in nice layers of complexity. When a wine is first poured however usually every aroma is going to be more concentrated then was intended in practice , letting breathe helps it to re obtain that balance again
2 tannins: there’s tons of different compounds in wine , one of the major groups is called tannins. Tannins can do everything from add colour to adding flavour and impacting the mouth feel of the wine. One thing about most tannins however is they are very bitter and they physically dry your mouth out (astringency). If you ever licked a wooden spoon you notice it felt like your mouth was dry? That’s wood tannins primarily causing that. One thing about tannins though is that oxygen is good at changing them, colour tannins for instance turn brown from oxygen after time hence why oxidized wine or an apple slice on the counter goes brown. The tannins in solution of the wine are no different and that aerating can help to soften them up a bit or make them less astringent, and since red wine has so much more then we sometimes aerate reds significantly to help “soften” the wine.
3 preference and complexity: two people will have very different preferences for wine and how much aeration is best will vary as well. I don’t like heavily oaky wines so if I had a heavily packed wine I would aerate it significantly to help soften it up to a point I could try and enjoy it , meanwhile someone who actually likes that would aerate it very little. The same can be said for complexity , I really like complexity in a wine so I don’t want to “soften” the complexity and make it more approachable but for my wife , she gets overwhelmed so I for sure will aerate stuff for her to make it easier for her to enjoy.
Because the air reacts with the wine and makes it taste better. If you have a wine that needs to breathe and you drink 1 glass as soon as you open vs a few hours later you can really tell the difference. If you leave it for too long though, more than a day, it risks turning into vinegar.
Alcohol that touches air turns to vinegar. Vinegar tastes good, and makes the wine taste more balanced
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