It has long been observed that a wine becomes more serious the moment a decanter is introduced. The Institution’s Standards Review Panel was recently asked to determine whether this observation could be made precise. This commentary, prepared at the Panel’s request, sets out what we found.
The Decanter Effect
In a controlled series of 640 tastings, identical wines were presented to matched panels in three conditions: in the bottle, in a plain carafe and in a decanter of the Institution’s Grade A specification. Panels were asked to rate the wine’s seriousness on a scale of 0 to 100. The results are summarised below.
The bottle condition produced a mean Seriousness Rating of 61.4. The carafe condition produced 68.9. The decanter condition produced 84.7, an uplift of 23.3 points, achieved by a vessel that is not itself in the wine. We refer to this uplift as the Pretension Gradient.
Further observations
The Gradient was found to increase with the height of the decanter (r = 0.71), the slowness of the pour (r = 0.64) and the number of people observing the pour in silence (r = 0.88). The last finding, which the Panel regards as the most instructive, suggests that the wine contributes rather less to its own seriousness than its audience does.
Notably, the Gradient was reduced to zero in the presence of a person who said, “It looks like a vase.” The Panel has not yet been able to reproduce this person.
Recommendations
Standard 31.2 shall be amended to require that decanters be employed only where the occasion warrants them, and that the occasion be deemed to warrant them in the presence of a decanter. The Panel further recommends that vases be kept out of reach.