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In France, when one wishes to entertain at a restaurant and serve truly fine old red wines, one visits the restaurant well ahead of time, chooses the wines and, with the advice of the manager and his chef, builds the menu around them.

The wine waiter will see to it that the bottles are taken from the bin and opened at least in time to warm and aerate, preferably allowed to stand on end for as long as possible and, perhaps in the case of very old wines, be decanted.

Decanting old wine aerates it fully ; ;

it may also be -- practically speaking -- a matter of good economy.

For, in the process of decanting, the bottle is only tilted once instead of several or more times at the table: hence, a minimum of the undesirable mixture of wine and dregs.