Hold on to Your Wine
You and a friend sit down to dinner and open a bottle of wine. You eat, you talk, you drink, but when the meal ends, the bottle isn't empty. You don't feel like finishing it, but the sink's drain is an ignoble end for good wine. You could make "The Best Red-Wine Vinegar You're Likely to Find." You decide instead to preserve the wine, but you need a strategy. Here are some tips.
Oxygen is wine's ultimate enemy. It's a poignant betrayal, for the two start as friends: Wine passes from shrieking infancy to confident adulthood as oxygen matures the complex swirl of flavors in the bottle or glass. But mortality is the steep price we pay for this transformation. Eventually the flavors become thin and frail. Eventually the wine dies. In a sealed bottle, oxygen snipers slowly pick off your wine's youth. Pull the cork, and the air carries an atomic army that ransacks your vinous treat. A simple wine dies quickly before the onslaught; a complex wine holds out longer. The oxygen always wins. Accept this. These tactics only stave off the hordes.
The more barbarians, the sooner your temples fall. Move the wine to a half-bottle. The volume of wine stays constant, but fewer ravishers can crowd in. If the leftover wine reaches the half-bottle's neck, the narrow passageway reduces the surface area exposed to air. It becomes a miniature Thermopylae, your wine Sparta to oxygen's Persia.
You can try to obliterate the invaders. Such is the promise of VacuVin and its kin. You pump and pump, removing the defilers. I distrust such devices. The pump is unreliable. A casual movement breaks the seal. It is not a true vacuum. You can not know how many oxygen atoms remain behind to plunder your treasured drink.
A better strategy: Flood the plains the raiders must cross. Private Preserve creates a wall of argon that sits atop the wine, heavier atoms that obstruct oxygen's relentless march against your precious liquid. This is not a perfect seal. One night an acquaintance of mine had a wine, freshly opened, and then the next day tried the same wine at VinoVenue, which uses argon in its high-tech wine machine. He noticed a distinct difference. Remember: Oxygen always wins.
Finally, put your opened wine into the refrigerator, even your reds. The cold slows the reactions that wither the wine. Remove your red wine from the deep chill forty-five minutes to an hour before you want to serve it.
The best strategy relies on combinations. Before leaving for Germany, I opened a bottle of Lodi Zinfandel so I could write a tasting note before we left. Melissa and I liked it, so we drank about half. I put the wine into a half-bottle (we have a small collection), and the wine came up to the neck. I used Private Preserve on the small space, then capped it tightly with its own cork. I put it in the refrigerator, and we left for Germany. Two weeks later, we opened it. It was fine. Another Lodi Zin, however, had faded. Remember: Oxygen always wins.
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