Great Ways to Save Your WIne
By Chuck Sudo in Food on Dec 19, 2006 3:55PM
Wine has been a constant presence at every dinner and party we've attended since mid-November. One niggling issue with all those uncorked and unscrewed bottles is oxidation. Sommeliers and wine experts can talk at length about how letting a wine "breathe" helps bring out its flavor. Let a wine sit out unprotected for too long, however, and you have another bottle of vinegar on your hands. Most of us can't afford the elaborate gas and refrigeration systems wine bars used to preserve their open bottles.
Normally, this is the point where Chicagoist would tell you to drain your glass so we can finish the bottle. Instead, we have some options for you if you can't finish that sauternes. The first is to buy a vacu-vin pump, which costs around $10 (and includes one rubber stopper). You place the rubber stopper in the bottle and use the pump to remove air from the bottle. This creates a vacuum, slowing oxidation. It's the most inexpensive method to preserve your wine, but also the one with the most scattershot results. The vacuum created is not perfect - the only perfect vacuum would be in space - so air slowly creeps back in, evening the pressure and spoiling your wine. We recommend vacu-vin if you're finishing a bottle within 24 hours.
There are a few inert gas-based wine preservatives available, as well. When sprayed into a bottle of wine, it forms a barrier between the remaining wine and open air. The most recognized on the market is Private Preserve ($8 at Binny's), but its combination of "pure air", essentially a mixture of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and argon. Our experiences with Private Preserve found that the turbidity rate of a wine is about the same as using the vacu-vin. At home, we use a newer brand called VineyardFresh ($12.50), which is an argon-based gas preservative. The gas forms a longer-lsating barrier than Private Preserve, but since it's argon-based, you'll need to aerate your wine a bit before drinking it. A third option is Winelife ($17.95), a nitrogen-based preservative that keeps open bottles of wine for up to 10 days.