Preferred wine preservation system

Hello all. I can’t find an earlier thread related to this subject (although I’m sure it’s been discussed before). Anyhow, curious to know peoples preferred system for preserving an opened bottle (one that will be consumed slowly over 2-3 days)? I currently use a vacu-vin, but some of my more astute wine friends warn of the loss of aromatics from this method. I don’t worry with regards to young wines, but wonder if vacu-vin might be harmful to older bottles? Thanks in advance for any helpful info.

I know folks who swear by vacu-vin, but I’ve never been confident that the seal really does that much more than recorking the bottle nor that the vacuum really alters the amount of oxygen that the wine comes in contact with. So… If I know I’m not finishing a bottle I’ll open the bottle, decant half into a clean 375ml half bottle, cork that and put it in the fridge. Yes, I expose it to air decanting it, but virtually all of that air is displaced by the wine and it then goes in a cold environment where reactions will be pretty slow. This works well if I’m finished 1/2 of a bottle which I almost always do if it’s a good wine. If iI don’t finish even half of the bottle I simply recork the full bottle with whatever’s left and refrigerate it. Not optimal, but it works fine for a day. Note that this whole approach pretty much assumes you’ll be drinking a bottle over 2 or maybe 3 days. If you’re drinking it over a full week… well… drink faster!

The Vacu Vin requires that you believe two things: A) that it creates a significant vacuum. B) that if it did, the wine wouldn’t boil away. Both are false.

I think the vacu vin does virtually nothing, so I haven’t used it for years. For a number of years I used argon gas, as I had a supplier in L.A. who was able to refill my tank every year or so as needed, and that worked great, and would keep the wine intact indefinitely. In the last couple years, I’ve moved to just having different size bottles–175 ml, 350, 500–so I can use whichever I need and fill it to the top, eliminating excess oxygen from the bottle, with whatever amount of wine I have remaining. I seal it with a plastic cork that I think is probably a tighter seal than just reusing the old cork. This method seems to work fine for keeping wine for 1 to 3 days. I don’t recommend it beyond that point.

Our dear departed (as in passed away, miss you Steve) Porto and Spirits manager used to keep wines, porto and more sealed in Schweppes club soda bottles in a small refrigerator in his house for YEARS with minimal degradation. You have to make sure they are sterile, have food grade plastic liners and you fill them to the TOP.

Glad to see little support given to the ridiculous concept of the vacu-vin. The inert gasses don’t work either because the wine has already taken up the oxygen. The topped 1/2 bottle in the fridge thing works pretty well in the way described & since the bottle has already been open a while & being poured, it really doesn’t add very much air to the wine. Have to admit I don’t usually have to worry about any of these alternatives 'cause the bottle ends up empty! Cheers! “[cheers.gif]”

The gas techniques function well if you commit to drinking a certain volume of wine before you open the bottle. Simply pour the quantity you’re going to serve then immediately gas the remainder. If you pour a few rounds over time then decide to gas the rest, you’re doing it incorrectly and can’t blame the gas.

Peter, I’m afraid your comment is misleading & you’ve misread my post if you think I’m doing it incorrectly. I use inert gas in the winery, but not in bottles of wine I’m drinking. For one thing, who drinks like that? That is not how these inert gas dosers are being sold, or certainly the users view of them. If used as you say, the wine will certainly be OK for a day or two, but it would also be fine in the fridge not even topped up for the same amount of time. In a topped bottle it would do as well, or better than your method, and I’ve done tasting trials of all permutations that back what I’m saying up. The only problem is the vast number of buyers are using the gas to “save” the bottle after they’ve been drinking it for an hour or so, and in that case, it is virtually useless.

Thanks for the cogent info guys. It’s interesting to note that the preferred system (fill a smaller bottle completely) also is simpler. I’ve had my doubts about vacu-vin when I’ve opened a bottle and it’s painfully obvious the stopper didn’t fully seal. Will give your advice a try. Thanks again.

I love to freeze whatever I don’t use and when I’m ready to drink it again I just put botle in luke warm water and after half hour is ready to drink.

Rob, I did misread your personal use of gas preservation systems. I’m not suggesting that the purveyors of the gas canisters give coherent instruction on the use of their products. I am describing the method of use that produces positive results. I do agree that vacu-vin sucks and freezing, or refrigerating at minimum, is the best technique available for wine preservation these days.

Personally, I have tried several preservation techniques but in my opinion none of them protect the wine from significant degradation. So, instead I don’t use any techniques. I try to buy more half bottles and I avoid opening my nicer bottles unless we intend to finish them.

I’ve always had trouble figuring out how to have a bottle last until the second day. “[snort.gif]” But circumstances this past week had me opening several of our wines for a tasting that didn’t happen. I Vacu-Vined the bottles with the idea that I would check in on them on Day 2 to see how they would fare and if they’d be usable for the next day’s tasting. The next day, for giggles I opened fresh bottles as well. In one case, the vacu-vin stopper had an unnoticed small crack and wine leaked. That bottle had degraded. In the other cases, the bottles compared quite favorably with their recently opened counterparts, seeming to imitate significant decanter time. I’ve never been a huge believer in the Vacu-Vin before and don’t think I will be a big user in the future, but they did work out for me this week. Better than nothing?

We sell “Private Preserve,” a carbon dioxide, nitrogen gas and use it in our bar on “by the glass” bottles. It works real well on Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris, holding them for about a week. Chards and reds will hold up two or three days, but all taste like they have had three to four hours in a large decanter, tanins very soft. Carrie can accurately tell if a wine has been gassed, saying she can taste it. I can’t “taste” anything and am only about 50% on picking gassed vs long decant.

I’ve been using sixpack San Pellegrino bottles (250ml, so exactly 1/3 a std wine bottle) or Perrier (330ml, a bit less than half). If you fill them exactly to the top, there is no oxygen problem except for what gets in during the pouring. (Incidentally, the openings are the same size as a wine bottle so pouring is easy–assuming you haven’t drunk too much already “[wink.gif]” . You can seal them with the caps they came with, tho I prefer to use screwcaps from other wine bottles, since they are designed for wine–can’t really say if this make a difference or not, tho. I put them in the fridge. This works fine for several days, even weeks (in the few cases I’ve tested), others claim they will hold for months. I tend to believe that, since no O2 gets in and the temp is low. If I don’t have enough left for a whole bottle, I use vacuvin on it. My impression is that this doesn’t work as well, but I can’t say I’ve really tested it. Caveat: my wife thinks I’m crazy. But what else is new “[snort.gif]” ?

If the leftover will not be consumed the next day it gets frozen NEVER a problem but I use a cool water bath to have it come to temperature. If I’m having the next day it goes into glass vessel close to the volume left and then the wine is brought to the top with glass marbles.

+1 I’ve never frozen wine, but I have to think it might change the acidity levels of the wine. This is what we do with whites to make sure they are cold stable- it gets the tartrates to drop out of solution. It could push the pH higher or lower depending on the starting pH of the wine.

The opposite of half full. “[snort.gif]”



I’m interested in what is is you’d say makes so many people believe that gassing after an hour DOES help wine last longer. I long ago concluded that, like so much else with wine, much of this has to do with palate sensitivity and experience, but it’s a little hard to conclude that the wine would be exactly the same with or without gassing the way most people use it. It’s too big a business for it to not work at all… or is that naive? What’s the scientific evidence that enough air has been absorbed into the wine in an hour to make preservation useless?

Peter, I’d say the evidence that so many people believe that gassing after an hour helps the wine last longer is seeing what & how people are using these inert gas products, which is gassing the wine that’s left when they are finished & there is wine leftover. Have you been witnessing a different sort of behavior? Scientific evidence? I suppose you could measure dissolved O2 & correlate it with the wines decline, but if you’ve got a decent nose & palate it’s a pretty easy exercise to perform, & the conclusion is pretty evident, even without measuring O2 uptake. I’m not trying to be a naysayer, but . . . Peters technique should have some effect, but again, how many people use the product(s) in that manner? just sayin’ . . . Cheers to finishing the bottle! “[cheers.gif]”