Steve Slatcher wrote:

> I understood that most of the oxygen that causes damage will be in the
> wine before it is put into storage. The extra bit that may enter
> through the surface of the wine in a stationay bottle is minimal
> compared with that which will enter as the wine is being sloshed in
> the bottle while pouring glasses. And decanting into a half bottle
> may make matters even worse. So the issue is rather how to stop the
> dissolved oxygen from oxidising the wine.

Steve,
Most certainly it is the dissolved oxygen that is at issue here.
However, when you open a bottle of wine, it is reasonable to assume that
the wine is in a reductive state at that moment (little to no dissolved
oxygen). The diffusion of oxygen through the small aperture of the neck
is not a fast process and in fact would take several hours if not longer
to reach saturation. So, if you decant into a smaller bottle
immediately after opening, and if you do so with a minimal amount of
agitation to the wine (i.e., strive for strictly laminar flow), you
shouldn't end up with much oxygen in the wine.
>
> Evacuation or blanketting will of course reduce the partial pressure
> of oxygen above the wine, and so may pull oxygen out of the wine, but
> again I doubt how big this effect will be.

Not very is my guess. The rate of reaction of oxygen in solution is
likely many orders of magnitude faster than its rate of dissolution.

Mark Lipton