This came up on the “I Think I’m Done Thread. I thought it worthy of its own topic. I tend to agree with Neal. There aren’t many bottles I enjoy after the first night. A few here and there, but mostly I don’t find them enjoyable on day 2 or 3.
Makes me wonder about bottles I see at restaurants that have been opened for days/weeks just sitting there with nothing but a cork stopper
I use it to guess how much gas it has in the tank. If something falls apart on day two, I’m going to make a note to drink any I have left, and probably not buy it again. Most wines I open are better on day two–but I only got serious about collecting in 2014–so the majority are very young.
Day 2 wines for me are like food leftovers.
They are Ok but don’t really excite me. Been there, done that.
My mind is already on to the next bottle. I want to try something new.
I’m also a Burg freak. VERY few wines are better the next day, at least to my palate.
We typically drink half a newly-opened bottle and then finish it the next night. A small percentage are (to me) noticeably better or noticeably worse on day two.
OTOH, I did recently have a restaurant BTG pour from a bottle that had obvioulsy been open way too long. Prune juice.
Somehow, remarkably, consistently, the wines from Dirty & Rowdy tend to get (even) better on night 2, and with plentiful air in general. Too small a sample size on the newer Wine Co Yeah! wines from Hardy to comment on those, but I would guess similar.
I’ve also had LOTS of wines of all stripes do better night two… rieslings, burgs, etc. Looking at my cellartracker notes, some notable examples are an 07 Defaix Les Lys earlier this year, a 14 Günther Steinmetz Brauneberger Juffer Riesling “HL” this year, an 01 Trimbach Riesling Cuvée Frédéric Emile 375ème Anniversaire last year, an 01 Camus Pere & Fils Charmes-Chambertin… a few of which felt “off” on the first night then remarkably course corrected on night two.
John Glas , come back and play. We will add Day 3 to the title.
I would guess we finish an entire bottle maybe 1 out of 100 times, so there is always leftover wine. I would also say that, for me, the vast majority of those wines are just fine 1 or 2 days later, sometimes more. Some are mostly unchanged, some actually improve, a very few deteriorate or change in a way that makes them less appealing. I often look forward to drinking last night’s wine to see if and how it has evolved.
I actually think about this topic a lot! For a variety of reasons.
I think ‘Planning’ or ‘Anticipating’ this style of wine examination can be a mercurial errand. However, my BFF @Mike_Grammer does this all the time, and I love listening to Mike (Every so often he even listens to me in return). Folks curious on this style of wine examination/note taking would do well to look at some of his archived notes from the last five years.
For certain wine qualities, I think multiple day drinking can be Super educational & Revelatory. These might be somewhat niche, but for figuring out the evolutionary pattern of a certain vintage, particularly a controversial one, I find them very useful.
Examples: I have a decent amount of '03 German Riesling, i.e. the Furnace Year. All Spatlese & Auslese, basically. I have found the acid & balance of these wines (Willi Schaeffer, Christoffel, especially) to have exceeded expectations. Not simply on day of opening but in the following day as well.
By Contrast, follow up day 2 for a myriad of '05 Burgundy have not exactly made me optimistic as to the enduring questions of Balance & Weight. Now, I don’t know what people thought about '86 Bordeaux ‘Day 2 Drinking’ back in 2003, but I’d be curious if it revealed optimistic appraisals 
. Obviously '86 vintage shines so brighly these days.
I can still vividly remember being gifted 1/3 of remainder of a 2000 Palmer by @Tim_McCracken back around 2008, I think. As he was about to leave on an overseas trip. I drink it two days later, i.e. on Day 3. And was genuinely blown away by how velvety & interesting & delicious it was. Again, had I had it blind, it would have been hilarious to talk about it and then reveal.
And this Spring in Atlanta, I was fortunate to after party with @Alex_Valdes & @MChang with some Day 2, 2011 Roumier Le Cras (Edit: 2014 as it turns out)
On Day 2, the aromatics & juicy ruby qualities were awfully cool 
. Clearly the wine needs a Day 2 to approach right now. That was quite educational. And a very cool wine.
(More Editing: Alright I’ve actually had a decent amount of '14 in contrast to '11 Red Burgundy. Still, my first Roumier '14). So, even within a vintage, one finds such variety in accessibility.
So, I ponder this question a lot. More pondering than conclusions tho.
I use a Vacuvin and it helps for some wines.
That Roumier was great but was 14 cras!
It’s so weird that I internally remembered it as an '11! Thank you for the correction… And corroborating my memory of it being delightful 
Totally agree with Josh here, I also think it’s a good predictor of how long that wine can age.
When I expect us to finish the bottle I’ll open something a little older, and when I think we might only have a glass each I’ll open a younger wine. I often enjoy the younger wines more after a day or two, but I rarely have that experience with older wines.
As far as buying wine BTG at restaurants, I take that into account when choosing the wines. I think it’s safer with something that I expect to be “too young” in case it has been open overnight already.
I reckon white Burg can be as good day two, not better. Red Burg is almost never better day two.
Even a young red burg?
Never better.
Wineberserkers: I normally decant for 12 to 24 hours
Also Wineberserkers: Wine is usually never any better on day 2
The 25th hour is when most bottles fall off the cliff.
Hope the “there is no point to decant wine”-crowd doesn’t drink Chateau Musar.
In my experience, there is not a material degradation of wine that’s poured to the top of a 375ml bottle, capped, and stored in the fridge overnight. This applies for young wine or wines that entered their drinking window. I cannot speak to it of very mature wines as I’m earlier in my collecting lifecycle and when such opportunities arise, I share the entire bottle with my wife or family to finish it same day.
It’s really been helpful in moderating nightly drinking and preserving freshness in wines. It has also eliminated the need to source 375 bottles at a premium.
Those who feel wines are always worse on day 2 should give this method a try if they have not already.
Pro tip - get a food and dishwasher safe wide mouth glass bottle. Easy to pour wine in/out and can throw in the dishwasher between uses.