I’ve moved away from 375 bottles to Sake split/single serve bottles for this. Use two of them if looking to do a 1/2 bottle. Fill them to the rim and then use silicon caps I bought on amazon that allow me to press the air out and get a vacuum seal.
Reasons:
more flexibility in terms of how many glasses I want to put away or how many I want to drink next time “by the glass” is a choice
wide mouth easier to pour into and also makes dishwasher cleaning possible.
Not a perfect solve, but way better than gasses, pumps, and incrementally better than half bottles IMO
I’ve had good results pouring 1/2 of the bottle into a 375 ml bottle immediately after opening, then using a vacu-vin stopper to suck the air out of the headspace. I can create enough of a vacuum that the wine will release air bubbles for up to a minute, almost like the effervescence of a sparkling wine. I then refrigerate the bottle for a few days (sometimes longer). Best results are with white burgundy, Barolo and bigger reds. Mixed results with red burgundy.
Vacuvin doesn’t create complete vacuum, and the cork isn’t airtight enough to keep the created vacuum at the wanted level for long enough. Ain’t going to go on a Google spree to try to find the numbers, but IIRC, Vacuvin sucks about 2/3 of the original oxygen away and just 1/3 remains. However, in a relatively short period (12 hours? Even less? Can’t remember) the oxygen concentration is already up to 2/3 of the original. Even 1/3 is not enough to halt considerably the oxidation process, let alone a higher number.
Furthermore, as you state, that partial vacuum increases evaporation (and loss) of volatile aroma compounds, which is going to damage the wine more than the gain from the more or less imperceptible retardation of oxidation that comes from decreasing the oxygen concentration in the headspace.
Early in my wine geekdom I used Vacuvin to store my unfinished bottles, but haven’t really touched the whole gizmo since I realized that the unfinished wines stayed in a better shape when I just stoppered the bottle with a cork and put the bottle in the fridge. And as said before, the wines stayed in an even better shape when moved into smaller bottles, eliminating the headspace entirely (and keeping them in the fridge afterwards). That way I’ve kept opened wines in a remarkably good shape for several weeks.
Another vote for Repour if you’re going to finish the bottle in a few days.
Repour works very well, as well as Coravin but without the fuss, for 3-5 days. I always insert it immediately after pouring. Not sure how important that is. Beyond 3-5 days, neither Repour or Coravin work that well in my experience.
Dividing the wine into smaller containers leaving no headspace at the time of opening sounds like it might work longer term. I haven’t tried it because I’m too lazy and we never have leftovers that last that long.
My experience with vacu vin does not agree with this statement. The seal is tight, and when I release it there is a noticeable whooshing of air even after 2-3 weeks. I use a 375 ml bottle, and only fill it to a low neck level, I find that gives the best seal.
Interesting stuff, thank you for sharing. My dad used a vacuvin when I was a kid but I’ve never used one myself. I didn’t know the seals were so prone to leakage. As you say, even if they weren’t, it seems like there’d be plenty of oxygen still in there to go to work on the wine.
I think many of the recs so far are good. Probably the best is if you know you will only drink half the bottle to pour into a 375 right away. I’m too lazy to do that, and my experience is that most wines are a lot more sturdy than we may think. I just store whatever’s left in the fridge, to slow down evolution, and pull the bottle out in the afternoon next day. It’s rare that the wine has deteriorated, and it’s often better the next day.
The original ribbed vacuvin is better than the later renditions that replaced them about 12-15 years ago. I think the key is placing the open bottles in the refrigerator. I use the original vacuvin and store open bottles in the refrigerator for quite some time (reds for over a week and whites will go up to a month). There is some degradation the longer you go, but it is relatively insignficant IMO. You can also microwave the wines if you want to get them to drinking temperature faster (10 seconds for a 4 ounce pour, 14 seconds for a 6 ounce pour, though individual microwaves may vary). I was shocked when I learned this, but a somm taught me the trick and it does not seem to impact the wine in the slightest. Even with the original vacuvin, it is ideal to check and reseal them once a week. I have very rarely found a loss of pressure this way and it’s pretty ideal because I only drink wine on weekends and typically will work on any open bottles the following weekend and open and reseal.
Read the thread title and I thought you were buying Bordeaux juice right off the press! I was so excited to read this!!