My Method for Aged Wine at Home by the Glass: No sediment, No Coravin

WINE TALK
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Hi everyone,

This post was prompted by this recent thread by @ Neal.Mollen, but I think it’s worth its own thread. I love Coravin for young wine, but as many point out, it doesn’t work well for older wines with stiff corks and sediment in the bottle. Here is a method I’ve worked out to enjoy aged wine at home one glass at a time. I’ve been using it for a about 3 months now and it’s worked great so far.

1- Open wine carefully- if old, use Durand.
2- Stick a mylar Wine Disc into the neck of the bottle to facilitate accurate pouring.
3- Carefully decant the wine over a light source into an empty wine bottle. Stop pouring when you see “smoke”, leaving the sediment behind.
4- Close this newly filled bottle with a Repour stopper.
5- Label (I use a wax pencil) and stick in the fridge.

You now have a bottle of aged wine, free of sediment, protected from oxygen. I’ve found that you can unstopper the bottle, pour a glass, restopper, and put back in the fridge five or six times over a month with little degradation in the wine. I’ve trialed this approach with Bordeaux, N Rhone, Rioja, and Nebbiolo back to the 80s with very good results. Just let the wine warm up in the glass a little bit before drinking. I even tried it = with a 25 yr old White Burg just out of curiosity and it worked great over 2 wks.

Decanting from one bottle into another sounds tricky, but with the Wine Disc, it really isn’t difficult at all. I’ve contributed my fair share of shattered glass pics to the Oops thread by @ Robert.A.Jr, and I still manage the transfer without spilling.

Also, you can rinse the wine discs and basically use them forever. The Repours are pretty much one use only, unfortunately, but you can get a great deal on them on BerserkerDay.

Hope the method works for you. Let me know if you try it out and how it goes!
Noah

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Good idea. I do pretty much the same. Decant off sediment then put back in the rinsed bottle, and pop in a Repour. I usually see deterioration around 5-7 days, but it’s rare for a bottle to last that long around here.

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Nice timing. I’ve been wondering how to preserve a bottle for one drinker over several days. Never tried the Repour method; how is this one use only? Does it absorb the oxygen and then gets “full” and no longer effective?

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I recommend rinsing your bottle with filtered water (or deionized water if you fancy) rather than tap, especially if there is any chlorination in your nabe. Shaking the bottle dry before refilling doesn’t get all the water out.

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That’s my understanding.

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Fortunately (or unfortunately) my palate is not acute enough to notice the difference. :smile:

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Lots of good advice here! I do exactly this (though I almost never decant initially, I can usually accomplish the equivalent just by pouring gently each time), but have not tried the repour. I’d be interested to see how you think your results are without using that, just re-corking the bottle

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No idea if it makes a difference, but the double decant you do is going to introduce more oxygen (and maybe a tiny bit of chlorinated tap water, though I honestly can’t taste the water when I’ve double decanted). The single pour just minimizes air contact and, at least anecdotally, I get much longer than the 5-6 days you’ve found.

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In my somewhat limited experience, the repour helps the wine last much longer. Shoving the cork in will give me 5-7 days, shorter if the wine is old and fragile. This repour method has kept a 1990s Rioja tasting great for over a month- and that was with opening it and pouring a glass four or five times.

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Repour works pretty well, but you lose the subtle aromatics over time as they evaporate into the headspace. But for larger scaled, less aromatically driven wines, it probably does show little effect.

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Actually Alan I use Repour like that (no decant, just pour carefully to avoid sediment) most of the time. With equally good results.

I’ll double decant if it’s an aged Nebbiolo with the likelihood of fine nasty sediment or if it’s a wine that I want to give some air time in a decanter. In the latter case, if we don’t finish the wine it goes back into the rinsed bottle with a Repour. That seems to freeze it in time for a few days to a week.

I mentioned double decanting only to point out that the Repour still works even though the wine has been exposed to air for a greater period of time than with simple careful pouring.

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Here I will caution that once oxygen gets into the wine during the process of decanting, it’s not going to be removed by the repour. If your concern is exposure to oxygen, I’d recommend just pouring gently from the original bottle.

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This is a good method. Agree with others the headspace will cause the aromatics to be lost.

Would also recommend trying 4oz glass bottles, filling to top, then fridge for storage. The cold temperature and no headspace prevents further oxidation and loss of aromatics.

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This approach seems great to get the wine off the sediment and preserve it for later! I might also try decanting into a 375 to limit the headspace. And maybe a coravin pivot or vacuvin as an alternative to the repour.

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I don’t know what a Coravin Pivot is but a Vacuvin does not work.

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That makes sense and is probably good advice especially for older wines. It hasn’t seemed to be an issue with younger ones.

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Good to know.

Does the same as the Coravin Timeless (fill the headspace with argon gas) except it uses a specially designed stopper for inserting the gas instead of a needle through the cork, which may be deteriorating if from an old bottle.

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Ok, just ordered the disc, thanks for the link. I’ll try this method, may use an empty 375 bottle, as my norm is 1/2 bottle per night. Actually, I cheat, so this might also limit me to 1/2! I have Repour as well. I have not yet been sufficiently confident with Repour on bottles 25+ yo but maybe this is the ticket. Thanks!

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Are those acrylic pourers recommended by anyone or do they affect the wine in some way?

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You’re using a new repour every time you have a glass?