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This seemingly simple question is a subject of serious study among the sommelier set. To let a wine "breathe" is to expose it to air. This may change the flavor of a wine, but not necessarily for the better. The theory is that air can mellow the tannic or astringent quality in some types of wines. Typically, age is what mellows these flavors. The only wines that really need to breathe are dry reds that are meant to be aged for many years before serving. If you serve them too young, they'll need to breathe first to achieve some of the complex flavor that age would have given them. Letting a wine breathe is a poor substitute for aging the wine in
the bottle, but it's the best you can do if you've already opened that classic red. If you have a very fine bottle of red that might need to breathe, the safest thing to do is pour a glass and taste it. If the flavor isn't satisfactory, let it breathe in the glass for a short time -- such as while you eat dinner. A wine that tastes especially "tight" or tannic might need to breathe for an hour or two. The longest you might let a wine breathe would be about five hours, but be careful because exposing wine to air for too long may ruin it. Wine won't get much breathing room if left in an uncorked bottle. To allow air to touch more of the wine's surface area, decant
the wine by pouring the whole bottle into another container, such as a glass decanter with a wide body. The action of pouring the wine will expose it to a lot of air, so if you don't have a decanter, a simple carafe or jug will give the wine more room than its original bottle and work just as well.
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