There are leftover ends of wine in my household, honestly, but should you not be going down the Nigella route of freezing your wine leftovers for gravies, then how to keep it fresh?
There is nothing as great as a freshly opened bottle for white and rosé wines, and those reds open for the correct breathing time cannot be beaten. Once open contact with oxygen makes the wine oxidise and spoil. This is a big problem for restaurants and bars offering wines by the glass, an inconvenience for the domestic drinker who only fancies one or two from the glass per evening.
Whites and rosés resealed and popped back in the fridge are fine, generally, the next day. Reds are usually less happy. A trick for home drinking is to pop the cork back in and pop them in the fridge too. Remember to take the red out of the fridge a good while before drinking it if you want to continue drinking it ‘à chambre’. Getting it in the glass will get it back to room temperature quicker.
Sparkling wine is fizzy because there is CO2 dissolved in it. This stays in solution in the bottle because the cork prevents the gas escaping. The small air space in the bottle becomes pressurised so no bubbles can escape from the liquid. It is true for any sparkling drink in whatever container; beer kegs do a similar job. This is why a cage is fitted over the cork of bottles to stop it being propelled out, or a crown cap is used. The pleasing sensation of sparkling drinks is those bubbles of CO2 coming out solution over your tongue, and why they invariably make you burp.
Exposed to the atmosphere those bubbles continue to escape until the drink is flat.
This Champagne stopper does a good job to keep the fizz in the sparkling wine by forming a seal at the neck of the bottle that prevents any gas escaping from the bottle. As the CO2 comes out of solution and becomes gas, this causes pressure to build up in the bottle. Once the pressure of the gas in the air space equals that of the bubbles, no more bubbles come out of solution. The arms hold the seal in place otherwise it would be propelled off. This is a good solution if the bottle is to be used fairly quickly. The more airspace there is in the bottle the less effective the preservation, as some fizz is lost into the air space every time the seal is broken.
There is an old wives’ tale that a silver spoon in the neck of the bottle helps preserve the fizz. That debate continues: http://blog.kumkani.com/?p=730
CO2 is heavier than air, so within that enclosed space the CO2 actually forms a barrier between the wine and any oxygen, so preserving it for even longer.
So, this is a fine solution, but not a perfect one. The Verre du Vin http://www.bermar.co.uk/
preservation system is altogether better. This system has a secured seal again, but pressurised CO2 is then pushed in so very little CO2 escapes from the wine. This works for beer, cider, and even non-alcoholic minerals. Of note here, pressurised air wouldn’t work, as the presence of oxygen would spoil the wine.
The rather slick Verre du Vin site also shows the vacuum system for the preservation of still wines. The absence of oxygen in contact with the surface of the wine would mean that oxidation is greatly slowed. For domestic situations http://www.vacuvin.com/Vacuum_Wine_Saver_215.html is great. These systems are good, but have a flaw in that the airspace is mostly empty in the bottle, but is not an absolute vacuum.
By far the best system is to flood the airspace above the wine with inert gasses to exclude oxygen contact. Many systems are on the market and more are being developed.
This concludes my round up of lesson one. In my next posting I shall move on to lesson two where we shall learn about Syrah, Grenache and Riesling grapes and the areas these are synonymous with.
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