The old-school method for dealing with sediment involves planning. Pull the older bottle of wine from your cellar a few days or even a week before you want to drink it, and set it upright so that most of the sediment slides down to the bottom of the bottle. Then decant the wine slowly, looking through the neck of the bottle with the help of a candle or flashlight until you start to see sediment and then stop, leaving the sludgy wine back in the bottle.

This method works pretty well, but it does mean you’ll be donating some wine to the sediment gods, and it’s obviously not an option when you decide to open a bottle on impulse.

Even though there are some funnels with metal screens that are marketed for wine, they’re more useful for bits of cork than for sediment. I know plenty of people that use coffee filters, but I’ve also heard that sediment can be small enough to pass through a coffee filter or cheesecloth, yet still feel gritty in your glass. But it is a way to save more wine.

more from Dr Vinny at Wine Spectator.com