short term wine storage

I'd say the immediate filling of a 375 ml bottle (or multiple 187 bottles), which is recorked and refrigerated, is about the fastest, cheapest, and most dependable option.

Hi Liam,

First .. welcome to the great journey of discovering wine .. something that can last a lifetime.

You didn't mention the vintage of the wines .. nor their stature .. Grand Cru as opposed to vin de pays.

Betsy and I seem to continually have 2-3 bottles of reds open on the counter at any given time. These are young wines ... often what we call "quaffers" and candidly for a 2-3 day period it works just fine for us.

Now .. if you are talking about better and/or older wines ... or where you want to be able retaste a young wine in a day or two to truly see if your notes earlier in the week were the same. Then ... Dale is right on about the 1/2 bottles.

Great excuse to go buy a couple of inexpensive dessert wines in 1/2 bottle format.

Art Stratemeyer ============================

Cellar! Wine Software

in article snipped-for-privacy@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com, snipped-for-privacy@celticbear.com at snipped-for-privacy@celticbear.com wrote on 2/3/05 12:24 PM:

I've used a VacuVin pump for years and find that it, combined with refrigeration, seems to keep wine relatively well for 4 or 5 days. The pump costs around US$9 or $10 and a couple of extra stoppers are US$3.

Re-filling smaller bottles, logically speaking, would seem to be as good or better since it keeps the wine free of oxygen, and using a real cork could be more effective than the VacuVin stopper. What doesn't compute for me is how good this method is if the left-over wine doesn't completely fill the smaller bottle. Also, if the left-over quantity is more than the smaller bottle holds, you are forced to drink the rest ;o) or fill another small bottle only part way. I think I'd vote for VacuVin unless your taste sensitivity finds a recognizable difference with the smaller bottle method.

Never tried the nitrogen method.

Your comment that Cabernet is the "safe" grape could just start something here. Let's see.

Our personal preference is to just drink the whole darn bottle, but that's easier with two than with one person.... the next best thing (in my opinion) is a combination of both the half-bottle route and the Vaccu-vin route. I open a full bottle and immediately pour into the half-bottle until its full. Then I use the Vaccu-vin to seal it and then put it the refrigerator.

The rationale behind this is that in the half-bottle, there is less air on the surface and the vaccu-vin has a much better chance of getting most of it out. In a half-full full-bottle, the vaccu-vin just doesn't cut it, except maybe for overnight.

Good luck, Gary

Hi Liam What I do depends on what I'm drinking. If it is something quite young and vibrant, I will just pop the cork back in and leave it on the bench (or in the fridge for whites). I work in an international hotel and do this regularly with wine samples to see how these wine will develop when we pour them by the glass. If I am opening a bottle that has some age on it (private stuff most often) and I know I won't drink it all then I will pour off into smaller bottles and re seal. I always have a few of the 187ml screw cap mini bar wine bottles kicking around for this eventuality. I open the bottle in question, decant and fill 1 (or

You've already had a few good answers from some very knowledgeable contributors. Let me throw in my two Lincolns worth.

First, at your stage (based on your true confessions), there's no need to spend a lot of money on equipment--beyond a quality corkscrew.

You can get some very interesting wines and build background by staying at the low price end. Find a nearby dealer with a broad stock and establish a conversational relationship. Follow his/her guide.

I'm not sure that trying some Cabernet Sauvignon is going "all out"--you can get cabs ranging from "two buck Chuck" to several hundred dollar Bordeaux. For now, just explore the menu that's available and within your budget. If you like reds, focus there. If white is more to your liking, go there.

Buy a book or two on wine. "Wine for Dummies" is easily readable, loaded with info and won't have you struggling to memorize the classifications of Bordeaux or the difference between a Grand and a Premier Cru.

Cover the opening to keep the flies out. You won't damage the wines you are starting with. Limit the retention to your own suggestion of "2 to 3, maybe 4" days.

Since most of what you will be trying will be younger wines, you can actually experience some of the development of the wine over time. Does it taste better when first opened, after a couple of hours, the next day or two days later. Some wine will change notably--not go bad, just change.

It will really shorten your available choices.

Don't worry about it.

You minimize the flies in the refrigerator, but for red wine, you will render it too cold to drink. Better just cork or cap and leave on the counter. (I've got a couple of nice silver drop-in stoppers that I use, but simply re-inserting the original cork will do just as well.)

Refrigeration will slow oxidation as you state, but be sure to let the wine warm up before drinking or you'll miss most of the flavors.

Finally, don't limit yourself to Cab--get some Zinfandel (not White Zin, but REAL zinfandel), some Syrah/Shiraz, some Sangiovese (think Italian), some Pinot Noir, and then expand the list to other varietals.

Have fun and report back.

P.S. Start raving about the wine when you taste and pretty soon the wife will be helping you solve the left-over problem.

Ed Rasimus Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret) "When Thunder Rolled"

Many wines are sold in 1/2 bottles, although you may have to go to a large wine store to find a variety of them. I often buy Champagne in half bottles for serving a glass or two to 2 people before a meal. Many Bordeaux wines also are available in half bottles. For your cooking and everyday wine you may be able to find a box wine that will keep a long time in the refrigerator. At one time only very cheap wines were put in boxes, but now there are a few that are good enough for cooking and even everyday drinking with a quick meal.

My mailbox is always full to avoid spam. To contact me, erase snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net from my email address. Then add snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com . I do not check this box every day, so post if you need a quick response.

Hi Liam What I do depends on what I'm drinking. If it is something quite young and vibrant, I will just pop the cork back in and leave it on the bench (or in the fridge for whites). I work in an international hotel and do this regularly with wine samples to see how these wine will develop when we pour them by the glass. If I am opening a bottle that has some age on it (private stuff most often) and I know I won't drink it all then I will pour off into smaller bottles and re seal. I always have a few of the 187ml screw cap mini bar wine bottles kicking around for this eventuality. I open the bottle in question, decant and fill 1 (or

Hi Liam What I do depends on what I'm drinking. If it is something quite young and vibrant, I will just pop the cork back in and leave it on the bench (or in the fridge for whites). I work in an international hotel and do this regularly with wine samples to see how these wine will develop when we pour them by the glass. If I am opening a bottle that has some age on it (private stuff most often) and I know I won't drink it all then I will pour off into smaller bottles and re seal. I always have a few of the 187ml screw cap mini bar wine bottles kicking around for this eventuality. I open the bottle in question, decant and fill 1 (or

Personal preference: the vaccuvin-type vacuum closures PLUS refrigeration is about as good as it gets for short-term wine saving. With whites, allow the bottle to warm a bit, when you take it out of the fridge - with reds allow it warm even more. The wine will change slightly, but I often have a bottle stored thusly for up to five days. The changes are slight and only careful comparison plus a good taste-memory will allow you to tell MUCH difference.

Hunt

--snip--

Thanks for the reply (everyone.) Yeah, the "going all out" comment was sort of tongue-in-cheek. At the time I thought it was a risky move, but I've since learned that Cabernet Sauvignon is pretty...opposite of risky, thanks to an article in Wine Enthusiast and Wine For Dummies. Over the last few months I've been trying all different grapes and regions. My favorites so far: Saisons de Vine "L'automne" 2002 by Copain Wines, Sutter Home Pinot Grigiot 2003, and Luis Felipe Edwards Sauvignon Blanc 2003. (I've started keeping a journal.)

My wife never liked wine before I started finding out the proper temperatures and glasses. I had no idea the glass could make such a huge difference! I thought, yeah whatever, it all goes in the mouth. How's the glass make a difference. So we had our own taste test with a plastic tumbler, a drinking glass, a champaign flute (wedding gift) and a generic Bourdeux glass. Wow! The differences were amazing, and it's not psychosomatic because I was a complete disbeliever in the possibility.

Soon after we went and bought a few Riedels and Spieglaus. =) I can even, half the time depending on the wine, tell a difference between the Riedel and Spieglau (sp) despite using similar shape and volume. One day my goal is to have at least one individual glass for every wine type. (The Riedel catalog is a very dangerous thing. *grin*)

Thanks again, all, for the comments! Liam

In article , snipped-for-privacy@celticbear.com says...

To address your comments re: Riedel and the shapes - I think I am in the minority in this NG regarding the positive aspects of the various shapes/ sizes, but I have become sold on a few of them. Like you, I initially was skeptical regarding the "need" for having so many different glasses. I started with a set of 12ea basic red & white glasses from a mid-range house, when we were married. About the time that I got hooked on wine, I did a similar experiment to yours with the white glass and the red glass, using a US CA Chard. Wow, the wine really opened up in the "red" glass, but was quite closed in the glass sold for the "whites." No contest! I've long since replaced all of the white wine glasses, but still use the old red glasses for everyday whites around the house. I invested in several complete sets (nowadays in lots of either 24, or 48, depending on style), mostly Riedel, with some Waterford from their "Tasting Series." I was happy with all of my glasses, and thought that the Riedel hype was just that - hype, until I attended a Riedel tasting a few years back. They had just introduced their "Montrachet" white wine glass, that looked rather like a red Burg glass, but more open at the mouth. I tasted a big US/CA Chard in it, then in the Riedel Chardonnay glass. Again with the WOW. I was immediately sold on that glass, as we do a lot of big whites from FR, US, OZ, and IT. When using these, some of my friends ask why I am using a red wine glass for a white, knowing that I am a glassware freak. I usually just give them a pour of the Corton, or whatever in each the Montrachet glass, and the Riedel Chard glass. I have yet to have a guest who could not tell the difference. Now, most did not rush out and buy a set, as I did, but no one has ever argued the point, just maybe the worth. Now, I have yet to do a full comparison of ALL of the glasses with each glasses' specific wine, but this one incident did make an even more firm believer out of me. The full catalog is probably major overkill, but there is so much to be said for "proper" glassware. Unfortunately, I always handwash the glasses the next day after a party, so that limits my dinners, etc. to Friday or Saturday, as a full dinner can require 2-3 hours of glass washing/drying/storing - bummer!!!!

Hunt

Immediately decanting _gently_ (no splashing) into a smaller bottle until it's _completely_ full and capping tight is really the best for storing opened wine. It'll keep for months or longer that way.

Too expensive. The only advantage it has over decanting to smaller bottles is that it isn't necessary to fill the bottle to exclude all gas.

A couple of days? Sure. Best in the 'fridge.

Good idea as an adjunct to any of the above methods - especially Vac-U-Vin, which does leave some air behind in the bottle. The only drawbacks are (1) having to warm the wine to room temperature in the case of a red, and (2) precipitation of tartrate crystals in wines that are not cold stabilized. The latter isn't really a big deal, since the wine is easily decanted from the crystals, and the flavor isn't affected.

Tom S

Just to add to other comment...

If you pour into a half bottle and vacu-vin it, just make sure you don't over-fill the bottle or you finish up vacu-vining your wine out of the bottle. Here speaks the voice of experience :-(

Salut/Hi Liam,

le/on Fri, 04 Feb 2005 00:47:00 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

If you saw my remarks about a cheese and wine tasting, you'll see that I feel that it is essential to have decent glasses to drink good wine. And of course the temperature at which you serve wine makes a huge difference to your perception of a wine. As general advice, serve a wine a few degrees too cold (note I'm NOT, repeat NOT saying that you should serve them all freezing) and see how it comes into focus as it warms up. I don't go so far as to say that you need 15 different expensive Riedel glasses to be able to enjoy your wine. I'd suggest that an INAO shaped glass is excellent when tasting to judge a wine, as it gives a reference. When it comes to drinking, I'd suggest that two basic shapes will do, not TOO huge, (the Sommelier range is an specialised analytical tool, IMO) one for Cabernet Sauvignon types and the other for Pinot Noir types. The INAO will do for all whites except your top white burgundies (Chardonnays) and you could serve these in a cab sauv red glass that is decently sized without being huge.

If you wanted to get - in the same range - a couple of other shaped glasses to see how the same wine shows in different glasses, there would be no harm, but I suspect you'll find that two plus the INAO will do fine.

As for techniques in tasting. Remember that tasting is quite different to drinking. Tasting is primarily to analyse the wine, trying to see whether it has faults, what the balance is going to be like, if it's age-worthy and so on. Although lots of us here have got into a (bad?) habit of drinking wine almost as if we were tasting it, drinking should, IMO be primarily for pleasure. OK, with that preamble out of the way. Some facts.

In your mouth, divorced from ANY sense of smell, we can taste salt, sweet sour and bitter. Some have added "hot" (as in chillies) and "tasty". But if you lost all sense of smell, that's all you'd get. So although therefore you should try to get the wine to all parts of the mouth to get as much taste as possible, the most important sense we use when tasting and drinking wine is smell.

So the "tasting" techniques used for wine are designed to get as good a smell as possible.

What I do (everyone will vary) (after looking at the colour and smelling alone) is to take a good sip, chew it around my mouth, and then cup my tongue to try to get the wine pooled there. I then pull air in _over_ that pool, making a kind of sucking action, and trying not to inhale excess wine. This frees lots of aromas from the surface as the wine is warmed by my mouth, and sucking, gets these aromas where I want then, at the back of my mouth. I then exhale the air through my nose, so that the aromas get there too. I normally don't need to do that more than a couple of times to allow me to begin to analyse the component smells. You may find you need less, or more tastes. Finally, when I'm tasting seriously, I spit out the wine, exzpelling it in a thin stream with my tongue through pursed lips. I may then smalck my lips (and mouth metophorically) to get the aftertaste.

Spitting is an integral part of serious tasting. Alcohol has the capacity of desensitizing your palate, so if you drink down 3-4 tasting samples, you've destroyed your capacity to analyse accurately.

Hope all that helps a bit.

(Don't bother, better spend the money on wine!)