Final answer:
You should decant wine to remove unpleasant tartrate crystals and to aerate the wine, enhancing its flavor. Decanting can also prevent oxidation, which could lead to an unwanted vinegary taste in the wine. Wine glasses can resonate, and bottles can break under certain conditions, illustrating physical principles related to wines.
Step-by-step explanation:
One should decant a wine to ensure that any insoluble materials, such as tartrate crystals, are removed from the liquid. These crystals, often found crusting the bottle or stuck to the cork, are harmless but can be unpleasant to ingest. In red wines, where tartaric acid is more prevalent, the appearance of these crystals is more common. Decanting also serves to aerate the wine, enhancing its flavor and aroma, especially in the case of older wines. This process is deemed important by wine enthusiasts because it can significantly improve the wine drinking experience.
Another aspect of the wine experience is the reaction of wine glasses to sound. When you moisten your finger and rub it around the rim of a wine glass, the glass can be set into resonance, producing a musical tone due to the stick-slip motion of the finger creating vibrations in the glass. Similarly, the integrity of a wine bottle can be compromised if a cork is forcefully pressed against the liquid inside it, with no air cushion to absorb the shock, potentially breaking the bottle due to the incompressibility of the liquid transferring the force directly to the glass.
Lastly, it's important to mention that wine can become oxidized after long periods of exposure to air, leading to an acetic acid formation which gives the wine an unpleasant vinegary taste. This is another reason to decant wine once opened and consume it within a reasonable time frame.