To decant … or not to decant. That is the question.

In recent years, at many of the better restaurants, the sommelier or wine steward will decant that is, slowly transfer your still wine selection, especially the big reds, from the bottle you selected, to a large, wide-bottomed crystal or glass carafe to let it breathe for 20 or so minutes before pouring you a glass.

Wine decanting has been seen as pompous, and may sound silly—how can pouring wine from one container into another make it taste better?—yet it works. It is a practice that truly enhances the wine drinking experience.

Originally, wine was decanted to remove sediment from older vintages. Wines aged in bottles threw sediment after perhaps 10 years. Not only was this sediment displeasing to the eye, it could also be quite unpleasant in the mouth. Nowadays, because of better fining and filtering methods, and because wines are drunk relatively younger, even the very big reds of Spain, France, and Italy rarely throw off sediment. Decanting is performed to aerate the wine, vaporize some of the alcohol, soften the hard tannins, enhance the aromatics, and bring forth the wine’s depth and complexity.