Bottle Shock and Air Flow

 This article is about chemistry, and I easily admit I understand nothing about it.

Normally, when I buy wine or get it delivered, I would not drink the wine for some time. It goes into the cellar. But a little while ago, I tried this white wine immediately, and it was not like I expected it. It felt unbalanced and unsettled. When I drank another bottle some time later, it was balanced, with excellent texture. You sometimes hear wine merchants saying, let the wine settle before you open it. Apparently the molecules of the wine get disturbed in transport (science people, help me out here), get mashed up, and need time to regroup.

Something similar happens when you decant wine. Most of the time, I see people simply dumping a bottle of wine into a decanter. Yes, the wine gets aerated, but again, the molecules get disturbed. Please use a funnel when you decant, and make sure the wine flows along the glass into the decanter. This is also why Riedel has come up with these strangely twisted decanters. It helps air flow without shocking the wine.

Sometimes you might open a bottle and do not have time to decant, but you wished you should have. There are devices which help in this situation. As you pour the wine, it gets exposed to some aggressive

airflow. I have used this device from time to time, but not on expensive bottles. Stephen Henschke advises strongly against using this, again because of the disturbance which occurs in the wine.

I would appreciate, if somebody could shed some light on this topic with more of a scientific background.