Storing Opened Red Wines

Box wine bladders are not a good oxygen barrier at the best of times. Reusing an old one is not a good idea IMO.

As an experiment, I kept an virtually-emptied bladder (a couple of ounces of wine still blocking the tap) around for a few weeks. After that time it had not had any additional air leakage into it that I could see. (Indeed, I couldn't see any air pockets at all. ) To verify that it wasn't just stuck to itself, I unblocked the tap and cracked it just a little and the bladder immediately started to fill with air and expand.

IOW, my experience says that a significant amount of gas can't get through the stuff, or even migrate through the liquid at the tap.

The idea, though, is to improve on current methods.

Zane

A few weeks would be OK. But try keeping a wine box for a few months past it's "best before" date (which is usually quite short). You will I bet find the wine noticably oxidised. But even then I doubt you will find air pockets. After the bag has been used once, it will have a few creases and cracks that will make it even worse a barrier to oxygen.

That isn't to say that the idea of some suction device is not a good one though. I believe such devices are available for purchase and aimed at bars. They just use something more sophisticated than a wine bag to contain the wine.

(snip)

This subject has probably been beaten to death, but for some of us those options aren't exactly satisfying.

I like to drink a single glass of wine with dinner virtually every evening, and my wife does not. I also don't eat the same thing every night and therefore don't necessarily like the same kind of wine every night. I'm probably not that unusual in these habits.

So the ideal situation for me would be to have about 4 bottles of wine open at the same time, meaning that each bottle would have to stay drinkable for more than two weeks if you didn't want to throw it out. (Again, ideally.) Just leaving it in the bottle for a few days turns good wine into undrinkable stuff, as far as I'm concerned. Paying 15 or 20 USD per glass maybe five times a week seems wasteful even if one is rich.

So, looking for a way to make a bottle stay reasonably the same as when opened for a day or seven or more is probably as important for me, and people like me, as the initial quality of the everyday wine itself. Otherwise, one has to limit oneself to box wine.

Zane

(snip)

(snip)

I wouldn't argue with that, but see my post in response to Ed Rasimus for my reason for interest. That is, a way to easily keep wine from an opened _bottle_ for only a week or two would be wonderful. (Or even 2 or 3 days.)

I'll check into the restaurant suggestion.

Zane

Zane, I really think the best solutions are going to be either an inert gas method or the small bottle method (I guess you could do both). You mentioned the small neck of a 187. One thing to try might be to fill all the way to the top (since they are screwcap) so thee is no neck air. If you could minimize agitation (pour slowly and smoothly through a funnel) and pour immediately after opening the "master bottle" it might help. And then refrigerate.

I'm not sure anything will give you a method that is indistinguishable from a freshly opened bottle for 2 weeks. I find it helps a lot to have a wife who likes wine (and friends who do). And I still produce a lot of red wine vinegar in my crock!

Another option of course is to buy 375s. That way you'd only need to do one 187 per bottle if you were drinking 6 oz or so a night.

PS I've seen people talk of freezing wines, but have never tried myself except for cubes reduced wine for cooking (which I gave up on, as it was seldom I didn't have wine around for that and we were short onfreezer space).

Steve, Most certainly it is the dissolved oxygen that is at issue here. However, when you open a bottle of wine, it is reasonable to assume that the wine is in a reductive state at that moment (little to no dissolved oxygen). The diffusion of oxygen through the small aperture of the neck is not a fast process and in fact would take several hours if not longer to reach saturation. So, if you decant into a smaller bottle immediately after opening, and if you do so with a minimal amount of agitation to the wine (i.e., strive for strictly laminar flow), you shouldn't end up with much oxygen in the wine.

Not very is my guess. The rate of reaction of oxygen in solution is likely many orders of magnitude faster than its rate of dissolution.

Mark Lipton

I have a nitrogen system and a couple of vacuum pumps -- either helps some. The nitrogen is kind of a pain and I use the vacuum device, refrigerate the open bottle, limit the number opened (usually only one or two), and tend towards cheaper wine than I would otherwise drink.

Just in case anyone is interested, I did a test with the 187 ml bottles not too long ago. I divided a 750 ml bottle into three -- one filled 187 with just the screwcap replaced, one filled 187 with a vacuum stopper, and the half-empty 750 ml with a vacuum stopper. Kept them all in the fridge for about 2 days. (I'm not sure whether the fridge was smart or not.)

I then opened a new bottle of the same wine bought at the same time and refrigerated. I let them all warm up some before I opened them. I was kind of amazed that they all tasted different, and that the half

- empty 750 ml seemed to taste the most like the new bottle. I can only conclude that I did something bad with the 187's but don't know what. I'm going to try this again with some kind of a wax seal on the screw cap of a 187, with all the non-metal parts stripped off, and be more careful about agitating things.

If anybody has any suggestions before I try it, let me know.

Zane

Oh my God, I am missing on so much fun! :-)

Mark, what do you estimate the energy-barrier for oxidation of wine may be? Ballpark, engineering estimate please?

What I am thinking is that if these two (concentration and temperature) are assumed to be the only two factors relevant to the discussion, we can compare the % impact on the rate of the increase of cct vs. reduction of temperature.

The other question I have in my mind is: would a wine bottle kept still absorb more oxygen automatically as it is cooled?

Cheers!

A few years ago my father and I did a single-blind taste-test with left-over wine. Single-blind means the tester knew which was which, but not the one doing the tasting.

I liked the wine put in the fridge and preserved with nitrogen the best. I didn't like the vacu-vin preserved wine nearly as much.

I think, but my recollection may be wrong, that my father preferred the vacu-vin wine.

In both cases, having preserved it in the fridge vs. room temperature was better.

Anyway, I submit that I'm more of a wine expert than my dad, so I stick with my preferred results!

Shaun Eli

Seems to me that the guy has no idea about what he speaks. And little idea about winemaking.

Many? I haven't had one single non-oxidized bottle from this producer, beginning from the days he personally poured his wines at the "Union des gens du métier" tasting during Vinexpo some 20 years ago.

So you have been happier than I.

"QdS" = Qoulée de Serrant? Quart de Schaumes?

M.

Hmmm. The box used by Jean Guyon, owner of châteaux Rollan de Byand Tour Haut Caussan, says the producers of the box give 15 months after filling as a best-before date for the unopened box,

M.

Ah yes, precisely, but this is the wolrd guru of biodynamics and the winemaker of the Coulée de Serrant...

OK, but every so often if you get a bottle over 10 years old (from the time when he used to make the wine, instead of spending all his time on world tours speaking and promoting his book), it can be stupendous.

CdS yes... ;-)

I know.

So obviously I was kind of unfortunate. But I am not sure. Three or four years back, I was invited to Millésima, the Bordeaux retail wine merchant. We were 50 or so (trade, press etc.) from all over Europe. Dinner was in Millésima's chai in Bordeaux. We were seated at tables of eight. After champagne as apéritif, the first wine served was Clos de la Coulée de Serrant 1996. It was like a crack right though the middle of the table: four found it absolutely stunning, albeit a little on the youngish side. Four others (me being among these) found it hopelessly oxidized and faulty.

M.

I do it all the time (with corks, and I insert a paper clip in before the cork to allow air to escape, and then remove the paperclip). It works very well.

Jose

After using the pump for a while, I tend to agree. However this is offset by the reduction of oxidation (or whatever it is that makes wine go bad after a week). So I pump if I don't have a full container.

Jose