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Dear all,

as a newcomer to Port I would like to get some advice on Port used for rinsing decanters:
The books on Port always recommend rinsing the decanter with cheap Ruby Port before pouring the VP into it. But they are not specific on what Ruby you should use. Can you take any Ruby that is at hand or does it have to be of the same brand as the VP? In other words: can you rinse the decanter with the cheap Niepoort Ruby and then pour a Graham's Malvedos into it?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Best wishes from the Rhineland
Andre

Don’t.

Rinse with hot water. Very very hot water. Then dry the outside, quickly. The heat of the glass will dry the inside. Wait an hour for the glass to cool. Then use.

Hmm. Never done that. Have, on the other hand, poured in and swilled around a negligible amount of the VP to be drunk, and poured it away, after rinsing etc.

djewesbury wrote:and poured it away, after rinsing etc.

Meaning, drunk it? Yes, I’ve done that. Works well.

You can use any like kind of Port as a rinse. Meaning, use a tawny for a tawny and a ruby for a ruby.

Who makes it doesn't matter, with exceptions. I wouldn't buy an exceptionally bad tasting Port to use as a rinse. The whole point is to prep the decanter for your good Port. A good quality ruby, like the Niepoort/Graham's/etc, will work just fine.

Whatever you use make sure to shake out as much as possible before. If using water, try to make sure the decanter is as dry as possible (time permitting) before using. Better is if you rinse with water, then follow that with a little Port as already mentioned.

i usually have a bottle of claret opened which i use instead for decanter rinsing.

A few years ago I secured a plentiful supply of port miniatures, which I find useful for this purpose, although I only do this with a decanter that's been freshly washed and needs it's residual water displaced.

Most of the time I decant without rinsing into a clean dry decanter, but always smell the decanter first, for any trace of mustiness.

uncle tom wrote:Most of the time I decant without rinsing into a clean dry decanter, but always smell the decanter first, for any trace of mustiness.

That is what I do.

Thank you all for your advice. I will try each method and see what works best for me.

AW77 wrote:I will try each method and see what works best for me.

If you are really to going to do this, please report back. Which did you decide? Why? One what grounds were the rejectees rejected? On what grounds did the winner win?

DRT wrote:

uncle tom wrote:Most of the time I decant without rinsing into a clean dry decanter, but always smell the decanter first, for any trace of mustiness.

That is what I do.

This advice makes sense, but I have never understood the need for rinsing with port. If you have a clean decanter, is there any real reason for rinsing with with port or is that just one of those mystic rituals that has no real impact? If you clean with water, you cannot detect if there was a drop or two left in the decanter, can you?

I suppose I believe that a swill of port lifts any odour that's sitting in the decanter. I have no basis for this and am quite happy to accept that I am merely being ritualistic.

djewesbury wrote:I suppose I believe that a swill of port lifts any odour that's sitting in the decanter. I have no basis for this and am quite happy to accept that I am merely being ritualistic.

The ritual does have one very clear benefit, which was described by JDAW above and can adequately be summarised as "Quality Control".

djewesbury wrote:I suppose I believe that a swill of port lifts any odour that's sitting in the decanter. I have no basis for this and am quite happy to accept that I am merely being ritualistic.

I have been under the believe that plain water would to the job if necessary. It would be a bit difficult to pop another bottle every time drinking vintage port, or perhaps ever worse to waste some of the treasured vintage port every time you decant. If anyone knows that water is not sufficient, I would really like to know.

AW77, please report back if you do try the different methods.

A question linked to this... what about the glasses? Do you rinse the glasses before you pour, and if so do you use port for that too? Recently I was at a tasting of 7 lovely ports from the 70ies. I knew they ought to be good but when I sniffed my glass they were not. Same thing with all 7 of them. I did forget to check my glasses before and they had not been used for a couple of weeks. I am quite sure that the fault was some odour from my glasses. After half an hour the port won the battle in the glass and I could smell the real thing but the first 30 minutes was a nightmare.

To sum up your advice, there are 5 different approaches
1. Do nothing and just check the decanter by smelling (act only if the decanter is musty)
2. Rinse with hot water and let it dry without using a towel
3. Rinse with a little bit of the VP you gonna drink
4. Rinse with red wine
5. Rinse with cheap ruby port

Up till now I always did approach No. 1, but the advice in the port books made me doubt if that is right.
I will try approach Nr. 5 next sunday and report on my experience (but I guess the outcome is the same as with No.1)

The glasses: You have a point there. My glasses are stored in a wooden cupboard with the cup down / the stem up. I get them out of the cupboard and put them on the table ca. one hour before I need them. I my experience the cups get enough air to lose any smell that should not be there.

But there is nothing to prevent one from pouring the rinsing liquid (be it red wine, ruby or VP) from the decanter into the glasses. (But guest who are unfamiliar with port wine serving might think they were given a dirty glass...)

If a glass is coming from a cardboard box, it needs re-washing. No soap, just very hot water and hand dry.

AW77 wrote:To sum up your advice, there are 5 different approaches
1. Do nothing and just check the decanter by smelling (act only if the decanter is musty)
2. Rinse with hot water and let it dry without using a towel
3. Rinse with a little bit of the VP you gonna drink
4. Rinse with red wine
5. Rinse with cheap ruby port

Option 3 has a secondary step which involves "Quality Assuring" the wine after it has been used to rinse the decanter.

There is also another option which I was shown in the Douro - use fortifying spirit to rinse the decanter. This has an advantage in that it can evaporate relatively quickly if left in a warm environment.

Today I tried option 5. I took a decanter I have not used for one year (stored in the normal fashion [not upside down] in a wooden cupboard) and a funnel (also not used for a while). The decanter didn't smell musty but also not as clean as normal. When held to the light it looked quite dusty. I didn't use any water to rinse it but instead used a little bit of leftover Graham's LBV (07, open for 2 days) to rinse both the decanter and the funnel. Afterwards I tried the LBV. It was quite delicious and not tainted as might have been thought. The VP I poured into the decanter was ok as well.
I'm not sure if my observations are in any way scientifically useful but I wanted to share them with you anyway.

Please do share.

In my household a decanter many months musty would have been washed.

I very rarely use port to rinse a decanter. If I pulled a decanter from the cupboard in the condition you did I would always wash with very hot water first to get rid of any dust. I might then rinse it with a little of the port from the bottle I was about to decant. I have never considered rinsing a potentially dirty decanter only with port

Our posts crossed. We said the same thing. You used fewer words.

Apparently a LBV is a very good cleaning agent.
That's the VP I poured into the decanter:
http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7477

An interesting TN, thank you.

Perhaps next time consider decanting the Port into two decanters prepared in different ways? The TN suggests the Port was rather dull. Could that have been caused by the decanter? By decanting into only one decanter it is impossible to tell.

We should all be trying this with relatively dispensable port.

I think the port I poured would have been dull in the best decanter as well. The LBV, which I used as a rinsing port, was fine and was even better after the aeration in the trial decanter than after just pouring from the bottle (it was a litre bottle opened for 2 days and kept in the fridge).
But the experiment you proposed involving the two decanters would be worth a try. Now my decanters are all recently used by now. Does anyone have a "dusty" decanter and would try it?

AW77 wrote:Does anyone have a "dusty" decanter and would try it?

Try here

Just for the record: I tried approach No. 3 yesterday. I rinsed the decanter with a tiny bit of the VP I was going to pour. As many of you have observed, this works perfectly well.
Next time I'll try rinsing with red wine.