Hi, I just got a basic cooler for 12 bottles and was wondering what my
options are to keep half empty bottles of red wine.

I think using the gas method makes sense, but can I store the opened,
gas flushed, bottle in the wine cooler afterwards? I always here it has
to be stored upright? I'd really like to use my wine cooler to store
it.

Thanks a lot,
Max

> Hi, I just got a basic cooler for 12 bottles and was wondering what my
> options are to keep half empty bottles of red wine.

Pour them into splits. Fill them to the tippy top (an inch of ullage or
less). Dangle a wire into the neck as you insert the cork (the wire is
to provide a path for air to escape as you press the cork in), then pull
the wire out.

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

In article .com>, maxx9900
@yahoo.com says...
>
>Hi, I just got a basic cooler for 12 bottles and was wondering what my
>options are to keep half empty bottles of red wine.
>
>I think using the gas method makes sense, but can I store the opened,
>gas flushed, bottle in the wine cooler afterwards? I always here it has
>to be stored upright? I'd really like to use my wine cooler to store
>it.
>
>Thanks a lot,
>Max

I have had very good luck with the Vac-u-vin oxygen extraction pump and
stoppers. I do this for all of my opened bottles, and place them on their
sides in the regular 'fridge. I have not done a control experiment to measure
the exact changes that might take place, but have kept reds for up to a week
with no noticeable change in the characteristics of the wine. Whites seem to
go a bit more quickly around the house, as there are always two drinkers, and
sometimes, I'm the only one doing the reds.

I have several nitrogen purge systems, and have ceased using them, as they do
not "seem" to offer better storage, and each has a proceedure, that can get a
bit involved.

I need to do a control with each method available to me, just to see if I can
detect a difference, but have not done so.

You might want to do a Search on Google.groups (afw) to see some past
suggestions and comments, as this is a fairly common question.

FWIW, I travel with a Vac-u-vin and about 4 stoppers, just for this purpose.

Hunt

Thanks for the replies. I'm still not sure which way to go. I kinda
liked the nitrogen idea, but always hear the bottles have to be placed
upright. I wanna keep them in my cooler though.

I bought those 4 in 1 stoppers that are air tight and filter unwanted
debris out of the wine. Would those be ok to keep open wine, lets say
for 24 hours?

In article . com>, maxx9900
@yahoo.com says...
>
>Thanks for the replies. I'm still not sure which way to go. I kinda
>liked the nitrogen idea, but always hear the bottles have to be placed
>upright. I wanna keep them in my cooler though.
>
>I bought those 4 in 1 stoppers that are air tight and filter unwanted
>debris out of the wine. Would those be ok to keep open wine, lets say
>for 24 hours?

Maxx,

I'm not familiar with the "4 in 1" stoppers, so I cannot comment on them. For
a 24hr period, I'm not sure that there were be all that many benefits to doing
other than placing the cork back into the bottle and putting it in the
'fridge. I do the Vac-u-vin thing out of habit. For Stelvin-closure wines, I
just screw the top back on, making sure that it is tight, and lay one of the
wine racks in my kitchen 'fridge, which is usually ~ 40F. Most of my Stelvin-
closure wines have been white and are usually consumed within 24hr's.

One note on the Vac-u-vin stoppers - if you do NOT pump them, they will weep
through their one-way valve, when the bottle is placed on its side. They look
wine-tight, but you MUST pump them, to close the valve and keep it from
leaking.

For short-term storage, I like Jose's comment on usuing smaller bottles. Save
a few .375 bottles, especially ones with Stelvin-closures for this purpose.
You just have to remember what wine you have poured into them! <G>

Hunt

This group really, really needs some FAQ material. This question has been
coming up steadily on the wine newsgroup for more than 20 years. (I could
quote.)

BTW many people (especially professionals who also are wine hobbyists) start
out with higher-tech methods for sealing the partial bottles at home, but
with time they relax to lower-tech methods. 15 or 20 years ago I would have
advocated vacu-vin more enthusiastically, and I still carry them in my main
car (along with the emergency spit cups, highway flares, tools, extra copy
of Stevenson's wine encyclopedia [ISBN 0789480395, that edition anyway] to
check little details, etc.). But I've found gradually that the atmosphere
or lack of it has less impact than simply a good seal and _refrigeration_ of
the stored partial bottle, which, as the chemists and thermodynamicists here
can tell you down to the kT/q, slows reactions, including spoilage.

Of course if I wanted to make money at it I could contrive impressive
arguments for inert gasses etc. (Don't settle for nitrogen, use Argon. Or
Helium: It's noble too, and floats over the wine ...) But practical
experience and a few accounts of controlled blind tests with glove boxes
persuade me that most of the utility of gas is, as usual, for rhetoric.

-- Max

Ok, so bottomline, once opened, I shouldn't keep my wine in the wine
cooler (set at 55 F), but should always put it in the fridge since it's
a bit cooler.

> For short-term storage, I like Jose's comment on usuing smaller bottles. Save
> a few .375 bottles, especially ones with Stelvin-closures for this purpose.
> You just have to remember what wine you have poured into them! <G>

Why only short term storage? Seems to me that one can remove virtually
=all= the oxygen. You might even be able to put it back in the wine
cellar for another five years.

And yes, I've discovered a new use for labels and ink.

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

In article >, says...
>
>This group really, really needs some FAQ material. This question has been
>coming up steadily on the wine newsgroup for more than 20 years. (I could
>quote.)
>
>BTW many people (especially professionals who also are wine hobbyists) start
>out with higher-tech methods for sealing the partial bottles at home, but
>with time they relax to lower-tech methods. 15 or 20 years ago I would have
>advocated vacu-vin more enthusiastically, and I still carry them in my main
>car (along with the emergency spit cups, highway flares, tools, extra copy
>of Stevenson's wine encyclopedia [ISBN 0789480395, that edition anyway] to
>check little details, etc.). But I've found gradually that the atmosphere
>or lack of it has less impact than simply a good seal and _refrigeration_ of
>the stored partial bottle, which, as the chemists and thermodynamicists here
>can tell you down to the kT/q, slows reactions, including spoilage.
>
>Of course if I wanted to make money at it I could contrive impressive
>arguments for inert gasses etc. (Don't settle for nitrogen, use Argon. Or
>Helium: It's noble too, and floats over the wine ...) But practical
>experience and a few accounts of controlled blind tests with glove boxes
>persuade me that most of the utility of gas is, as usual, for rhetoric.
>
>-- Max

Max,

I'd definitely advocate the use of Helium. Imagine trying to listen to some
wine geek (like me) wax poetic over the attributes of wonderful 1er Cru
Chablis, in a cartoon voice! No way one could pass as a wine-snob if they
sounded like Huey, Dewey, or Louie.

As for the FAQ update, I think that this would be a good addition. Someone (St
Helier?) posted the link, not too long ago. I do not know who the "keeper" of
the FAQ is, but it might be time to cast votes for addenda.

Hunt

I've tried using a half bottle yesterday and I think it works pretty
well, I have almost no air in the bottle.

My other two questions that haven't been fully answered:
Is it better to keep an opened bottle in the fridge or can I put it
back into my wine cooler?
If I use nitrogen or some gas to flush out the oxygen, can I place the
bottle back into my wine cooler or does it have to be placed upright.
I've read this on some instructions for these nitrogen systems.

Thanks everyone

> Is it better to keep an opened bottle in the fridge or can I put it
> back into my wine cooler?

I think it's better in the fridge. I suspect (but have not tested) that
if you indeed got all the air out by recorking in a split as I suggested
(as opposed to simply shoving the cork in, which would pressurize what
air there was, though I don't know if that's important or not, since
that's probably what the wineries do), you might be able to put it in
your wine cellar on its side for another five years. It would be an
interesting test.

> If I use nitrogen or some gas to flush out the oxygen, can I place the
> bottle back into my wine cooler or does it have to be placed upright.

I suspect it depends on the gas and the quantity. The point of keeping
wine on its side is to keep the cork moist for long term storage. Short
term I don't think the cork needs to be moist (wine sits on liquor
shelves for a while, upright). Gasses not only displace the oxygen
prior to recorking, but settle to the bottom of the ullage where they
serve as a shield for what oxygen remains on top. In theory. I suspect
however that at non-cryogenic temperatures, there is enough thermal
mixing of gasses that this effect is minimal to miniscule.

However, upright there is probably less surface area exposed to the
gasses, so any reactions would occur slower, and that is probably why
the nitrogen instructions say to do this. Nitrogen is slightly lighter
than oxygen, btw. Helium is lots lighter.

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Hunt" in :
> In article >, [Max] says...
>>
>>This group really, really needs some FAQ material. ...
> ...
> As for the FAQ update, I think that this would be a good addition. Someone
> (St Helier?) posted the link, not too long ago. I do not know who the
> "keeper" of the FAQ is, but it might be time to cast votes for addenda.

The subject arises periodically (links below), sometimes citing the
few-years-old independent HTTP-site FAQ list referred to above (developed
out of AFW by Harm Ellens). Some examples of these discussions, currently
archived on Google:

Apr 2006 http://tinyurl.com/fvh39
Nov 2004 http://tinyurl.com/fmd6j

I say "currently" because the wine newsgroup approaches 25 years old,
whereas HTTP addresses come and go. (For 15 of those 25 years, the only
_public_ Internet wine forum was the wine newsgroup; history posted
earlier.) As net.wines its first message is still Message-ID
<anews.Aeagle.239>, you can read it on Google currently at
http://tinyurl.com/on3j6 ; being a newsgroup message it didn't "reside"
anywhere but was diffused internationally and could be archived by anyone,
which is how Google got it much later. Early material was archived by
various people and sites. People still read newsgroups who saw net.wines
created.

Sorry for the digression but it points to further issues related to FAQ
lists.

1. Obviously people come and go. A thread linked above regrets names not
seen lately. That's inherent. (Regulars who contributed constructively for
more than 10 years, and set the newsgroup's tone, are unknown to regulars
who joined in the last 10, for example.)

2. Historically (i.e., before "Web sites"), FAQ lists appeared on
newsgroups themselves; some still do. Whether there, or on an independent
Web site, someone with consensus support must be willing to maintain an FAQ
list. A hard set of requirements to fill.

3. A wine newsgroup has unique features, even if less central to Internet
wine discussion than 15 years ago. But if you want to talk about consensus
FAQ lists, it might be time to talk also about undoing the major past
mis-step, and return the wine newsgroup to its classic name which today
would be rec.food.drink.wine . It wasn't called that for the last dozen
years because of a temporary reason in the early 1990s which is long, long
gone.

Recall that the newsgroup began as net.wines, later rec.food.drink (in the
late-1980s newsgroup renaming), which then still carried mostly wine traffic
for years. Google's archive happens to be weak for that period but others
exist. Longtime plan and momentum was to split to multiple drinks groups
over time. Impatience later (by people with limited history in the group, I
gather, as usual), when the separation didn't happen _quickly enough,_ led
to someone arbitrarily creating a name in the free-for-all "Alt" category.
(Actually multiple names, but most of the "alt" wine newsgroups aren't
used.) That soon removed any question about separation (and therefore, the
reason for the move!) Yet the other modern spin-offs in due course
(rec.food.drink.beer, rec.food.drink.coffee, rec.food.drink.tea), all bear
the root name of the venerable newsgroup devoted to wine! Do you see how
absurd this is? The wine newsgroup began that whole hierarchy. Its long
history (not to mention helping new readers to find it, and some returning
ones) argues for returning the name itself to its origins.

-- Max Hauser

wrote:
> I've tried using a half bottle yesterday and I think it works pretty
> well, I have almost no air in the bottle.
>
> My other two questions that haven't been fully answered:
> Is it better to keep an opened bottle in the fridge or can I put it
> back into my wine cooler?

The cooler the environment, the better. Chemical reactions in all but a
few esoteric cases proceed slower at lower temperature.

> If I use nitrogen or some gas to flush out the oxygen, can I place the
> bottle back into my wine cooler or does it have to be placed upright.
> I've read this on some instructions for these nitrogen systems.

As long as the seal is tight, you can place the bottle in any
orientation you want to. If it leaks, keep it upright.

Mark Lipton