The Auswine Forum

I saw this topic on another Forum and decided to grab something I had dug up in the past when I was trying to figure this out for myself.

Here is the URL for the article I found on the net which was a very interesting read on someones wine preservation experiment.

Personally I use half bottles to minimise air exposure if I ever have some leftovers, have found that the best for red's for my tastes.


http://wine.about.com/library/weekly/aa102700a.htm

Here is an excerpt of the story to show what they tried, you can follow the link to read the whole story.


It's a topic that wine people can spend weeks arguing about. What do you do with that half-drunk wine bottle at the end of a night? Can you just cork it and leave it on your counter? Should you decant it and put it into the fridge? How about gas or vacu-vin or other methods - do they really work? Are they worth the money?
.........


........decided to do the following things to each wine after removing half of the wine:

• Simply cork one bottle and stick it into the fridge. 750ml bottle, half empty.
• Vacu-vin a bottle and stick it into the fridge. 750ml bottle, air "removed".
• Apply gas to a bottle and stick it into the fridge. 750ml bottle, layer of gas on wine.
• Decant the wine into a half-bottle and stick it into the fridge. 375ml bottle, NO air.
.

Test Components:

• One cork-in-bottle 750ml, half empty.
• One Vacu-vinned 750ml bottle, air "removed".
• One gassed N2/Ar/CO2 750ml bottle, layer of gas on wine.
• One decanted 375ml bottle, NO air.

[quote="Mark L"]I saw this topic on another Forum and decided to grab something I had dug up in the past when I was trying to figure this out for myself.


• Vacu-vin a bottle and stick it into the fridge. 750ml bottle, air "removed".
• Decant the wine into a half-bottle and stick it into the fridge. 375ml bottle, NO air.
.

Hello

I've played around over the years with most options. The two above I think work well enough for the wine to be enjoyed the next day or so, and I use one or other of them. For the second one its essential no air gets in, so fill completely to the top, overflowing even, and good screw top, say small fruit juice glass bottle type..

You need to be a little organised if its a red wine and take it out of the fridge in plenty of time for it to return to room temperature slowly however.

Gavin Trott wrote:You need to be a little organised if its a red wine and take it out of the fridge in plenty of time for it to return to room temperature slowly however.

That's what the microwave is for

Just leaving the half-bottle on the bench is enough over Canberra winter, putting an iso tasting glass with 120-150 ml of red in the microwave for 10-12 seconds works for me. Of course if it was an older wine there would not be any left to subject to the risk of keeping or the indignity of this process.

.... Is there not a risk of bottle variation with their experiment? Better to share a magnum around the four methods - so like is compared with like.

Me... have been using the half bottle technique, which does seem to preserve better than vac-u-vin. Sadly these days, between two of us we often take 2 sittings to complete a bottle - what lightweights!

Ian