Actually, the previous poster is limited in his experience and knowledge. Costs that are "far too much" is a very subjective statement.
Winekeeper and Enomatic, e.g., produce quality equipment that will reliably maintain the integrity of partial bottles for up to 3 weeks.
One of the 13 informal fallacies of elementary logic is "proving the general by the specific". The technology of nitrogen or argon displacement works indubitably. Partial vacuum systems do not.
Whether one can afford a hobby or not has nothing to do with the laws of physics.
>>
>>It does work, but not as well as the bottles of nitrogen spray that you
>>use to exclude oxygen from the bottle.
>
> One really nice aspect of the VacUvin-type device, however, is that you > can
> travel with it. On the road, a pump and a few stoppers will go quite a > ways
> toward keeping the wine "better" for a few days. I use these all of the > time,
> and, coupled with refrigerator storage of opened bottles of both white and
> red, I get about 3-5 days of useful life from a bottle. I will not claim > that
> the bottles (actually the wine IN those bottles) is as good as when first
> opened, but it will extend the life some. While I've got several nitrogen
> purge units, I have basically retired them, even the big unit, that cost > me
> far too much - but it does look impressive with the hoses, the cylinders, > etc.
>
> Hunt
>