Except for wines with RS taking the open air better, I find no rules or assumptions I’ve had hold.
I’ve had many red wines (mostly young) better after 2-3 days open with just the cork stuck back in. This has happened with Barolo, Cote Rotie and Cornas and Texier’s Pergaud wines, Beaujolais, and Burgundy for sure. For whites certain older vintages of Prum were almost undrinkable without at least a week open. That doesn’t happen as much anymore, but I often like young German Riesling and Vouvray better on days 2 to 5-7 open.
It’s now part of my normal practice at home to follow wine over many days. I did it the last couple weeks with the 2018 Huet Le Mont Demi, 2006 Bosconia Reserva, and NV (2014 base) Roederer Brut. The Huet was best and the same from days 2 to 5. Bosconia was beautiful on days 3 and 4. Roederer didn’t even start to really show until day 2 after it was open. Best to my taste on the 3rd day.
Thanks for you post Jayson. That really makes a lot of sense. I recently did tasting notes for a 2007 JJ prum Spatelese and did the notes on the first tasting. I had to go back and edit the notes after the second day because it was so much better on day 2. It was something I hadn’t really ever run into bc I am typically drinking with others and only occasionally have left overs for day two. I honestly would have rated it a full 2-3 points better the second day (if ratings mattered at all).
I don’t use any air tight stoppers or anything so that is probably something I need to invest in. Thanks for reminding me Bradley and also welcome to the boards!
Thank you so much, glad to be here. The air-tight stopper makes a critical difference. When I was just reusing the cork to stop up partially drunk bottles they may have lasted 1-3 days. Now I bet I could get more than a week if I really wanted on many wines.
Specifically, I use the wine stoppers from Crate and Barrel. They cost $2—probably the best investment I’ve ever made in the world of wine.
Two separate questions here. One is personal drinking habits, the other is how different wines are affected by time after opening.
As with Jayson I’ve been surprised too many times to have hard and fast rules but generally speaking it’s a rare young German riesling which I don’t think is at least as good if not better a day or two later.
An Equipo Navazos PX kept improving and developing more and more in the fridge over the course of months.
The 1995 Grand Puy Lacoste I opened last week was pretty indistinguishable on day two after consuming about 1/3 of the bottle and putting the rest in the fridge. Day three it was not nearly as good. Day four I dumped the remainder.
I still remember a Clos Roche Blanche gamay which I drank 2 glasses of and then got paged from work and discovered the bottle hidden behind some papers about a week later. I was ready to dump it but poured a sip and it was gorgeous!
On the other hand sangiovese is a grape which I find needs some air but almost never lasts to the next day.
I’ve found that Repour (https://www.repour.com/) works substantially better than a simple stopper. They’re not too expensive. Bottles hold up 5-7 days without noticeable change. I mostly use them on older bottles. Young wines tend to do fine overnight without it, and a bottle rarely lasts beyond 2 days.
As per Howard Cooper’s post above, I think that, in general, sweet wine in general holds much longer in the fridge, and sweet(ish) German wine improves the most after opening with time in the fridge. The sweeter the wine, the longer it can ‘last’ after opening. Most Sauternes can last 2-3 weeks in the fridge. Spatlese and Auslese Riesling can often last a week and actually improve with 1-2 days.
However, in response to the question in the original post, MOST wine is best on day 1, “still drinkable and decent” on day 2, and “still drinkable but iffy” on day 3. There are exceptions, and particular grapes (Nebbiolo, for example, and often Syrah) are much better at holding, or even improving, by the next day than other grapes (Sangiovese, Grenache, Pinot Noir).
Even within those general rules there are exceptions. (On a few rare occasions I’ve been surprised to find a Brunello that NEEDED to be opened overnight and had vastly improved overnight, though I try not to leave any Sangio unconsumed unless I’m really not feelin’ it on day 1 and believe it has enough stuffing to make it worth trying again the next day). However, 90% of the time wine is at its best either upon opening, or within 3-4 hours of opening.
That is absolutely my experience. A couple years back I drank some Falkenstein Rieslings a full week after opening and there was no sign of deterioration. That said, usually an open bottle doesn’t last that long.
I can think of one red wine that tasted better on day 2. Several years ago I tasted a bunch of California Cabs at a dinner with a group of friends. One of the wines there was 1994 Dominus. I was a bit disappointed in the wine. Seemed a bit monolithic and not showing much complexity. There was some left in the bottle at the end of the night and I brought it home. It was marvelous the next night. My take was that the wine was too young and showed it the first night but with additional air opened up.
Oloroso sherries however, may last for a few months.
On extremely rare occasions, we have some wine left in a bottle and drink it the next day. When I sold it, I’d often have leftover wine for the next day, but often as not that became cooking wine.
In my experience, I rarely find either reds or whites better on the second day than on the first. I’m sure there are wines that do improve, but I’ve had enough disappointing second day bottles to not want to risk it.
However, I did do an interesting experiment once with a bottle of 1996 Serio e Battista Borgogno Barolo Cannubi around 2006. I decanted a bottle, left it in my wine cellar, and drank one three ounce pour each day until it was gone (eight days). I recall it was at its best around day three and started to fade around day six. It was kind of a silly experiment, but I got a bunch of bottles for cheap so had some fun with one.
I only drink reds and I’m the only drinker in the house. I live alone actually. It typically takes me about 4 hours to drink a bottle.
It worked out perfectly when I was binge watching tv shows like Game of Thrones, or Billions or whatever. Each episode typically lasted about an hour, so I would watch 4 episodes and by the time they were all over, I was just finishing up the bottle.
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