The glory of the 4oz/5oz tasting bottles. 79 Heitz Martha's opened 10 days ago - still drinking as good as when opened.

[CFu]

Tips for a clean siphoning experience: 1) Have the bottle you’re transferring from higher up on some solid/stable surface. 2) Have good backlighting, so you can see the filling level clearly. One of those boxy 9V flashlights is a good option. 3) Be holding the bottle that’s being filled. Lift it to slow and then stop the flow. 4) For wines with sediment, put a clip of some sort on the tubing, so it can’t reach the bottom of the bottle.

yep! Great advice. I use the dining table and bring it down to the bench. When it gets time to stop the flow I just lift the bottle and transfer.

[R_Roberts]

I try to fill it up high to have as little air in the bottle as possible.

Is the goal to perhaps overfill a little, so there is no air?

If the goal is stasis, I fill close to the top. If the wine benefits from air, sometimes I’ll intentionally leave some headspace to drink over the next few days. I use tapered 250ml bottles, and in my experience it takes what looks like a large amount of air to make any real difference.

[JDavisRoby]

For those that are shipping these are you Pobegaing (is that correct spelling, ha) or letting rest a bit?

[Joe_Chanley]

Tips for a clean siphoning experience: 1) Have the bottle you’re transferring from higher up on some solid/stable surface. 2) Have good backlighting, so you can see the filling level clearly. One of those boxy 9V flashlights is a good option. 3) Be holding the bottle that’s being filled. Lift it to slow and then stop the flow. 4) For wines with sediment, put a clip of some sort on the tubing, so it can’t reach the bottom of the bottle.

yep! Great advice. I use the dining table and bring it down to the bench. When it gets time to stop the flow I just lift the bottle and transfer.

video please!

[AndrewH]

I ordered from here - https://www.burchbottle.com Can purchase by the case (12) of bottles. Bought 375ml and 8oz to fit 28/400 cap (basically the same as Fu’s but slightly larger (28mm vs. 22mm)). They have several other sizes that fit these caps - realize I should have bought some 5 oz ones as well - I can divide a bottle in 2 or 3, but not 5.

[CFu]

Tips for a clean siphoning experience: 1) Have the bottle you’re transferring from higher up on some solid/stable surface. 2) Have good backlighting, so you can see the filling level clearly. One of those boxy 9V flashlights is a good option. 3) Be holding the bottle that’s being filled. Lift it to slow and then stop the flow. 4) For wines with sediment, put a clip of some sort on the tubing, so it can’t reach the bottom of the bottle.

yep! Great advice. I use the dining table and bring it down to the bench. When it gets time to stop the flow I just lift the bottle and transfer.

video please!

When it gets close I just bring the taster bottle up to the main bottle level

[Lonnie_F]

Mad scientists all! Love the siphon

[Joe_Chanley]

Thanks charlie

[John_Morris]

Opened a 1979 Heitz Martha’s 10 days ago. Poured into decanter for sediment around 3pm - decanted back into the clean bottle 4 hours later at 7pm. Drank from 8pm-12am. Had 6oz left in the bottle so poured it into a 4oz boston round and left it in my fridge.

Just got to it tonight and it’s still as youthful and wonderful as it was that night.

Does this make you a fan of screwcaps, then?

[CFu]

Opened a 1979 Heitz Martha’s 10 days ago. Poured into decanter for sediment around 3pm - decanted back into the clean bottle 4 hours later at 7pm. Drank from 8pm-12am. Had 6oz left in the bottle so poured it into a 4oz boston round and left it in my fridge.

Just got to it tonight and it’s still as youthful and wonderful as it was that night.

Does this make you a fan of screwcaps, then?

The only issue with these is the reductive element you get, which I think screw caps have, but I have no problem with screw caps. Get rid of corks for all I care. Diam/Screw Caps for life. Tired of corked wines

[RickieM]

For larger bottles (e.g., 12 oz, or saving half a bottle), what do you all think of something like this? Or is a screw cap preferable?

[J_Rock]

For larger bottles (e.g., 12 oz, or saving half a bottle), what do you all think of something like this? Or is a screw cap preferable?

These work very well in terms of keeping air out, but you need to fill them all of the way, or close to it, for them to preserve the wine like the 4oz bottles do. Someone in our virtual tasting group used these bottles at first, and these wines always went the quickest once opened, similar to if they were in a normal sized opened bottle.

[CFu]

For larger bottles (e.g., 12 oz, or saving half a bottle), what do you all think of something like this? Or is a screw cap preferable?

Gotta make sure the seal is tight. Some of those lose seal pretty easily without even noticing.

[Wes_Barton]

I love flip-tops, and use them for all sorts of things. The rubber gaskets are easy to replace. They seem to have a good life span, but it’s something to pay attention to.

[RickieM]

Thank you all for the replies. How does the seal compare to a conventional screw top bottle with a phenolic polycone cap? Both airtight?

[Jayson_Cohen]

Opened a 1979 Heitz Martha’s 10 days ago. Poured into decanter for sediment around 3pm - decanted back into the clean bottle 4 hours later at 7pm. Drank from 8pm-12am. Had 6oz left in the bottle so poured it into a 4oz boston round and left it in my fridge.

Just got to it tonight and it’s still as youthful and wonderful as it was that night.

Does this make you a fan of screwcaps, then?

The only issue with these is the reductive element you get, which I think screw caps have, but I have no problem with screw caps. Get rid of corks for all I care. Diam/Screw Caps for life. Tired of corked wines

The long-term problem with screw caps/anaerobic seals—not just normal “reduction” but a thiol generation machine:
Sufides the whole story - so far.pdf (518 KB)

[CFu]

Does this make you a fan of screwcaps, then?

The only issue with these is the reductive element you get, which I think screw caps have, but I have no problem with screw caps. Get rid of corks for all I care. Diam/Screw Caps for life. Tired of corked wines

The long-term problem with screw caps/anaerobic seals—not just normal “reduction” but a thiol generation machine:

I went to law school so I didn’t have to read this stuff Jayson.

Aren’t these basically theoretical problems?

Either way - do Diam then, i don’t really care. I’m anti cork.

[Jayson_Cohen]

The only issue with these is the reductive element you get, which I think screw caps have, but I have no problem with screw caps. Get rid of corks for all I care. Diam/Screw Caps for life. Tired of corked wines

The long-term problem with screw caps/anaerobic seals—not just normal “reduction” but a thiol generation machine:

Aren’t these basically theoretical problems?

No.

[Robert_Grenley]

I am a bit suprised this works so well. In this case, you double decanted a wine and slow o-d it for 9 hours… so plenty of air exposure… and then simply poured it into a smaller vessel with limited air… and everything was perfect? What surprises me is not that it works, but that this is only a potential thing now in 2020, versus the past 500 years. I’m just shocked that it was not used widely earlier, given I know there are pre-COVID board posts that refer to this method working… but little widespread adoption… and even folks freezing wine instead of this method.

As an aside, an implication is that the effects of decanting are generated from surface area contact, and not the actual act of decanting a wine (i.e., introduction of air while transferring wine between vessels)?

This feels worthy enough for a WB trial. A dozen or so WB each take a 750ml, pour out 1 large glass for immediate consumption, one 4-6 ounce boston round, and the remaining ~1/2 bottle stays into the bottle with a Repour… and then tested against each other 10 days later.

The wine needed every bit of air to begin with. It didn’t really hit its stride until 6 hours post opening. I wouldn’t say it was slow ox’d, it was poured multiple times, so the impact of the wine moving up and down the bottle also creates air exposure. So once you toss it into the little bottle you’re basically limiting oxygen exchange and attempting to keep it in that state at 40F (or below).

To me the idea isn’t that different from what cognac, scotch, wine producers do that want to stop aging and putting the liquid from wine barrels into glass containers.

I don’t know why it wasn’t more popular until I posted about it back in April, but I’m glad it took off. I see it all over Instagram now and all over the world.

p.s. I already did what you suggested re testing. A repour doesn’t even hold a candle to this method. My local tasting group was using Repours extensively before this and they’ve all stopped. No one believes me until they try it. Then they try it and never go back.

I had Todd join us in a tasting and he would not believe what I was telling him until he did the tasting.

pps edit - if it’s good enough for master somms and advanced somms training for master somms, it’s good enough for me!

I imagine that you are airing the wines (as opposed to just decanting off sediment) prior to the transfer to the sample bottles so that the other tasters don’t have to air them in glasses before the tasting.
However, from the aspect of “preservation”, do the wines truly “stop in their tracks”? Even after several hours in a decanter, once poured into the sample bottles with no airspace, do they really taste even a few days later like there has been no progression? I thought there would be oxygen in solution that would continue to affect the wines even in the absence of any airspace, which is why I thought the wines had to be poured into smaller containers (again, for preservation purposes) right after opening.
Also, have you tried storing the samples at wine cellar temps, as asked, and on the counter, and compared with fridge storage?

[AndrewH]

For larger bottles (e.g., 12 oz, or saving half a bottle), what do you all think of something like this? Or is a screw cap preferable?

Gotta make sure the seal is tight. Some of those lose seal pretty easily without even noticing.

While those look fun, gotta say nothing is easier than a screwcap to deal with and be sure it’s on tight.

I think bottle + cap is going to be cheaper too.