First off - not all wines need decanting before drinking, whites and roses almost never benefit much from it. But lets imagine for instance your wine loving ways has meant your friends and family have given up imagining what to buy you for christmas and you suddenly find youself with a rack full of great wines to work your way through.
Crack open one of those deep reds, a Rioja or Claret for example, and glug it into a decanter, thats the speedy way some restaurants do it - this is totally pointless, yes it will airate the wine and start to release the flavours but you'll be sipping with clenched teeth trying to block out the purple grit you should have got out if you did it properly!
Things you'll need:
A decanter (this kinda thing)...
A tealight and a lighter/matches
Your guests wine glasses positioned at the top right of their plate
A wine glass turned upside down
An absorbant cloth or teatowel
I shouldnt need to tell you to bring your wine and corkscrew at this point... :)
(Dont forget to google the winery and find out a little bit of info on the wine to blub about while you get set decanting, people in any situation are going to appreciate something more the more they know about it
You know how you always get hungry while watching cooking programmes? - Same principle.)
Now clear a little space on your table, its quite handy to have a small coffee table or something to wheel up to the side of your dining table incase the worst does happen (the one day my decanting table was being used elsewhere in the restaurant I ended up dumping a half a bottle of inky red wine over the MD's wife - I like wine but I never said I was classy! This is clearly why you need a cloth handy)
On the left hand side of your space put your decanter, cleaned with just water - washing up liquid can taint the wine.
In the middle put your upturned wine glass, on top of this place a tealight and light it.
Now open your wine, smell the cork - if it smells a bit like mushrooms it's probably corked, if it smells like wine, hurrah! go ahead.
Holding the neck of the bottle over the flame so you can clearly see the candle will allow you to see the wine passing out of the top of the bottle, hold your decanter at the right angle and begin pouring into it.
As the wine runs out of the bottle and in to the decanter you can see if anything solid or dusty is beginning to come through, if you see it come through slowly stop the stream of wine for a few seconds and start pouring again, this will let it settle back at the bottom of the bottle.
Once the bottle is starting to run out it might be too full of sediment to avoid getting it in the decanter - in that case sacrifice the small couple of centimetres of wine left at the bottom of the bottle and enjoy your decanted, airated, flavourful wine as it starts to open up after god knows how long in the bottle. You can show the black silt at the bottom of the wine bottle to your guests so they can gawk at your masterful skill...
The point of decanting is not to have something pretty looking to pour your wine from - its about bringing the wine back to life as the winemaker intended it. Years in bottle can leave wine a little closed and boring, by releasing it into the air the fruits become soft and supple again, much in the same way an apple gets less bitter and more sweet after its been cut open. Dont be afraid to glug the wine as your decant, this adds more air speeding up the "opening up" of the wine. If you dont have a lot of time on your hands, or one decant hasnt particularly done anything - decant more than once! It just speeds up the effect. Theres no rule against this anywhere and if it improves the taste why wouldnt you?
So now you've impressed your guests with how much hard studied knowledge you have about this particular winery (gathered from google) and how smoothly and casually you can decant your wines while being watched, and holding up a conversation . You can sit back, relax, and once your friends and family are suitably typsy - you can tell them you really wanted a kindle.
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