How do you preserve your wine overnight?

I know this is going to sound terrible but if ever I am elected or appointed as president, king, prime minister or absolute ruler of any nation, one of the first things I will do is to make it illegal to hold a bottle for more than 24 hours after it has been opened and that no matter what the storage method. I firmly believe that no wine, no matter its qualities, should be held responsible for what happens to it after that period of time.

No fear though.....punishment for violating my law will be moderate ... no lashes, no imprisonment, not even a fine. Merely to send a bottle of any fine vintage year of Krug to the ruler's residence.

Best
Rogov

In my limited experience, I actually enjoy some young white wines more after they have been open a day or two.
Muscadet and German Riesling are the first two examples that come to mind.
Very few red wines are better the next day, although, Cru Beaujolais and Nebbiolo are two that improved overnight for me recently.

Would your law apply to Porto as well? I have had good luck with some of those improving after 24 hours.

Absolutely not. I was referring entirely to dry reds and white. Wines, including those of Port, Jerez, Tokaji and some sweet wines (but not those of Sauternes or Barsac) are exempt from my regulation.

Best
Rogov

I have no objection whatever to bag in the box wines on the condition that we are referring to wines that earn earn scores of 80 or lower so long as those wines are destined for nothing more complex than picnics, ball-games, pizzas or hamburgers.

Lawsy, lawsy, I am such a terribly old-fashioned man.


Best
Rogov

I'm surprised so many people are pouring off into 375s...I would have thought the added benefit of minimizing surface contact with the air would be outweighed by the dissolved O2 you introduce into the wine via the pouring process.

You need not introduce much O2 when you pour off the wine. If you smoothly decant into the 375 the liquid is flowing with what the experts refer to as laminar flow. In that case, turbulence is minimized and there is little oxygen ingress into the wine. For the really paranoid, you could purchase a fish tank aerator, connect it to a bottle of nitrogen, argon or (better yet) helium and sparge your wine briefly with the inert gas, then seal the bottle. Too much work for me, though. To avoid all that work, I'd just drink the wine instead

Mark Lipton

Ok, so here's my question. There are obviously several chemical and biochemical reactions taking place as the wine is exposed to air.

First off you've got the standard issue oxygenation reactions. What's the reaction rates on those? Do tannins protect the wine? Are any of the volatile aromatics oxidized and destroyed? Are the reaction rates highly temperature dependent?

Then you've got loss of volatile compounds to the air-- presumably some sort of equlibrium is reached w/r/t the volatiles and the air in the bottle, and when you introduce new air you lose some volatile esters and such.

Lastly you've got the biochemical reactions. Presumably as soon as the bottle is opened you're giving Acetobacter a foothold in the wine, and VA starts to go up. How fast does this happen (obviously depends on the pH of the wine, inter alia), and how temperature dependent is this process?

If the oxidation reactions are relatively slow (and my understanding is that they are, and that some might be desirable in that a lot of reductive compounds are removed from the wine), is fridging it really going to matter? We're talking a 30 degree temperature difference--its been awhile since I took P-Chem, but I can't imagine that is going to affect reaction rates too strongly. On the other hand, bacterial growth rates are highly temperature dependent, and fridging a wine should strongly reduce the production of acetic acid in the wine. Along those lines, I wonder if a drop of sorbate might do wonders to preserve a wine after its opened.

Certainly not for aging. But if there was a good weeknight wine in a box I'd buy it. From what I understand you can drink it for weeks after opening without any loss of quality.

there are lots or problems here. most wines have no noticable VA in them and they CANNOT become noticable overnight; so whatever you are finding ain't that. red wines truly are more fragile than whites; but for a number of reasons. some will last for days open on the counter; others will die in the refrig. i'd suggest buying 187ml sparkling wines with twist caps and filling them to the very top. can't do any better.

Am I losing some vital essence through microwaving?

Instinctively mircrowaving wine seems wrong - potentially damaging - to me, but I don't know the science of this.

I too am a fan of immediate transfer of half the bottle to a 375 with no airspace followed by refrigderation. Works farily well most of the time. David Z: The rates of reaction vary exponentially with temperature, so a few degrees can make a big difference in rates. Keep in mind the exponential dependence is on degrees K, not Farenheit, so the difference is maybe 10-15 degrees at most.

Another factor is that cold aqueous solutions can hold more dissolved gas than warm. Perhaps this is why corking a 375 at room (cellar) temperature with no airspace is superior to just corking up the half filled 750 and sticking it in the fridge.

Am I losing some vital essence through microwaving?

Instinctively mircrowaving wine seems wrong - potentially damaging - to me, but I don't know the science of this.

Robin's take on it...
http://www.wineloverspage.com/wineadvis ... 071029.php

Easier to put it in a warming bucket. Fast and easy.