Storing Opened Red Wines

Sorry Mike, but this is contrary to common wisdom, my experience, and chemistry. Cool temperatures slows down oxidation.

M.

Keep int in the refrig and let it warm up to about 60 degrees before drinking.

There's a point at which one realizes that a major personal change has taken place. When I read this post, my reaction was Good grief, man, that's damn hot!"

Then I realized he was talking about Farenheit. And this despite growing up in the States and, for years, reaching for my calculator whenever anyone used Centigrade. Looks like my six and one-half years of living abroad have finally taken hold.

Jim

I am not a chemist, nor do I play one on TV. But I agree with Michael Pronay just based on anecdotal evidence - it seems to me that refrigerated half-filled bottles are less prone to oxidation than ones left on counter.

Uh huh. I actually find many of M. Joly's wines taste oxidized upon opening. The rep once told me "that's what Chenin Blanc tastes like" (my response was "not from Closel, Papin, Huet, Epire, etc etc etc).

Congratulations, you are now officially an outsider. Since you live in Tokyo at least they let you keep the housing deduction. (As of a few days ago, anyway).

Go Mets! ;)

-E

that's right, every second bottle seems to be that way. Not that I mind it that much, as it does not prevent the extraordianry evolution of a good year's QdS in the bottle as a meal goes on... However some vintages seem to verge on being off.

Wow, an actual chemistry discussion here. Let's see what I can add:

1. Yes, oxygen does have a higher solubility in cold water than in room temp water; that's why coffee should be made from cold water brought to near-boiling (it has the highest amount of dissolved oxygen).
2. The rate of oxidation of any substance in solution will depend on tepmerature, its concentration and the concentration of oxygen in solution, hence the relevance of solubility data. For the science wonks in the audience, the functional form is:

rate = k[organic][O2]

where k is a so-called rate constant specific to the reaction in question, and the brackets indicate concentration

1. rate also depends on the inverse of temperature, the functional form being:

rate = Ae^(-∆G‡/kT)

where A is a constant, ∆G‡ is the energy barrier (reaction-specific), k is Boltzmann's constant and T is of course temperature

1. The issue of oxygen solubility becomes virtually moot if one makes any effort to exclude oxygen from the bottle, either by evacuation or filling to the top, or blanketing with nitrogen, etc.
2. My own experience is that cooling the wine down does hlpe preserve it, but I usually take pains to exclude oxygen.

HTH Mark Lipton

I use a vaccuum pump, which will preserve the wine for a day or two quite well.

That semi-colon reminds me of the famous 'step 2: a miracle occurs' cartoon :). Why is coffee better when made with high dissolved-O2?

If every equation halves your audience, we're in trouble by now!

Note that theoretically*, your tastebuds are more sensitive at lower temperature, as their resting membrane potential is closer to zero (from the Nernst equation:

R T Extra_Con_i E = ----- ln( ------------- ) i z F Intra_Con_i

where T is the only variable of RT/zF). However, this is way more than cancelled out by (i) alterations in membrane fluidity, which are especially important in the nasal epithelium, and will reduce ability to respond to stimuli, and (ii) reduced volatility of the compounds which would otherwise bind at that epithelium.

OK, this was gratuitous. However, just back from the Neurosci meeting and having just taught sensory neuro, it was - warning, pun impending - on the tip of my tongue..

Because the characteristic aroma of coffee is produced by the oxidation of a thiol in the coffee, so one needs the dissolved oxygen to promote that reaction.

Great use of gratuitous math, Ewan, not to mention the puns!

Mark Lipton

(snip)

I have tried filling some screwcap 187 ml bottles with the freshly opened wine -- the idea being to fill to the point where the oxygen amount in the bottle neck is small. I've had mixed results, probably because of imperfect stopper seals -- can still tell the difference after a few days with a newly opened bottle. Anyone else tried this?

It's occurred to me that there's probably some way to refill a box wine bladder so that there's no air inside and reseal it, short of using a syringe like refilling an inkjet cartridge. Any thoughts on this by the inventive?

Zane