Hi, I would like to get feedback/comments about the following please:

PROBLEM: I open a bottle every week. I would like to compare the bottle I am opening to the one I opened last week and the week before that. However, the previous week's wine will oxidize so I cannot get a good taste comparison.

SOLUTION: What if I take miniature bottles and fill them all the way to the top with the wine I want to store then it should stay for a few weeks without oxidizing? There might be a tiny bit of air between the top and the cap underside but I can't see that doing much oxidization as there wouldn't be a lot of oxygen in that little gap. Would people agree? Are there other solutions people have tried?

SOLUTION2: Use a vacuum pump to extract air. I have one of these, but not sure I trust it since I cannot believe it truly extracts all the air out of the 750 ml bottle. From what I recall from physics (its been awhile!), to truly create anything near a true vacuum would require an overwhelming amount of force.

Thoughts would be most appreciated. Please cc: me on the replies (removing the uppercase) -

Regards,
Paul

I'd go with solution 1. I've never thought vac-u-vin very effective. If I know
I really am not going to drink more than 1/2 a bottle over a couple days, I
immediately pour half into a clean 375 and recork. Wine holds a week or two
quite well. Same would obviously work with 187ml bottles.

I recently read where someone does the same thing, but adds a few drops of a 2%
solution of potassium metabisulfite (did I get that right?) -seems more
complicated than needed to me, but ingenous.

The other idea would be a commercial heavy gas product, i.e. Private Reserve.

Dale

Dale Williams
Drop "damnspam" to reply

"Dale Williams" > wrote in message
...
> The other idea would be a commercial heavy gas product, i.e. Private
Reserve.

Private Reserve is nitrogen IIRC. Nitrogen is _lighter_ than air (but not
by much).

Tom S

amnspam (Dale Williams) wrote in message >...
> I'd go with solution 1. I've never thought vac-u-vin very effective. If I know
> I really am not going to drink more than 1/2 a bottle over a couple days, I
> immediately pour half into a clean 375 and recork. Wine holds a week or two
> quite well. Same would obviously work with 187ml bottles.

I agree.

>
> I recently read where someone does the same thing, but adds a few drops of a 2%
> solution of potassium metabisulfite (did I get that right?) -seems more
> complicated than needed to me, but ingenous.

That's very interesting, thanks for sharing. I'm not sure why I never
thought of it. It wouldn't take much Potassium Metabisulfite to
scavange the O2 picked up during transfer or left in the head space of
the new bottle. Since I usually have some K. Meta. solution on hand,
it really wouldn't be any more complicated than just transfering the
wine.

>
> The other idea would be a commercial heavy gas product, i.e. Private Reserve.

I have my concerns about the effectiveness of this especially after
the discussions we've had here and on RCW about gas dynamics.

>
> Dale
>
> Dale Williams
> Drop "damnspam" to reply

Andy

"Tom S" > wrote:

> Nitrogen is _lighter_ than air (but not by much).

I thought air was a mixture of roughly 80% nitrogen with 20%
oxigen. How can one be ligther than the other?

M.

Michael Pronay > wrote in
:

> "Tom S" > wrote:
>
>> Nitrogen is _lighter_ than air (but not by much).
>
> I thought air was a mixture of roughly 80% nitrogen with 20%
> oxigen. How can one be ligther than the other?
>
> M.
>

Nitrogen is the llighter component of air (lighter than the oxygen) this is
so the same as water is lighter than alcohol even though they mix.