Best of the Best

If you’ve joined the big leagues of wine collecting and consumption, then you already have a wine refrigerator, a few decanters, plenty of stylish openers, and hopefully, some really fine bottles of wine. Probably you’ve got a decent storage and stopper system and you spend a little time thinking about these wines and when and where to pour them.

But you don’t have everything yet. The fact is, a good bottle of wine, particularly older bottles, require special care. For instance if you have in your collection a few bold red wines, like a 1970s-era Cabernet from Napa and a few Bordeaux from 1960s France, chances are that they’ll need decanting before you serve them. Pouring a bottle of wine into a decanter can be an art form at times and loss of wine at these prices is not an option.

Enter the wine funnel. This seemingly humble device is actually pretty useful for decanting your good bottles of wine. The purpose of the funnel is to provide a more foolproof way of getting your wine from its bottle into a decanter. Most good funnels come with a surface filter to trap sediment that will invariably be in older bottles. They also provide specific spout designs to allow the wine to slowly and carefully move into the decanter by not simply splashing into the opening. Believe it or not, with these wines, there is an effect called “bruising” which can occur in older, more delicate wines. “Bruising” occurs when the wine is simply splashed into the decanter and gets a great big dose of oxygen all at once. This can change the wine’s fundamental characteristics and usually not for the better.

Funnels, then, are useful and simple tools - but don’t be fooled. They come in an assortment of shapes and sizes. What you need will depend upon the quality of the wines you’re pouring. What follows is a list of the best funnels. They don’t cost a fortune, but they can save the one you invested in your wine.