Wine preservation tools – Why are they needed and which one is right for me?

If you are a frequent wine drinker you are probably aware that air will deteriorate the quality of the wine.  Leaving a bottle sit out open over night will change the taste and not in a good way. So wine preservation is needed to preserve the partially consumed bottle until a later date.

Wine preservation pumps are the least expensive way to preserve wine and they work well if you drink the preserved wine within a week.  These pumps suck the air out of the bottle but the number of times you need to pump to properly preserve the wine depends on how much wine is left in the bottle.  You will feel a difference when pumping the air out of the bottle, each pump will get harder but it’s a judgment call to know when you have removed the air from the bottle.  Better to error on the high side when pumping, as I said you can feel the difference.  The pump comes with a rubber stopper, which stays in the bottle.  When you’re ready to drink the wine, remove the stopper by pushing the button or squeezing the stopper to release the pressure.   There are many different manufacturers of these wine preservation pumps with varying prices but they all work basically the same.

Another style that works the same as those I just described is the Metrokane Gauge Wine preserver.  The difference being the stopper has a gauge and tells you when you've pumped enough vacuum to preserve the wine. In this way you can be assured that the wine is preserved but also you can check the bottle days later to see if the gauge still shows the wine preserved.  You are not able to do this with the wine pumps previously described.

I have used both the pump with the gauge and the pump without the gauge and both work well, but I usually drink the preserved wine with in a day or two but as long as the vacuum holds you should be able to store it longer without any problem. 

Suppose you decanted your wine and you have some left over, well you can pour to back in the bottle with a funnel although that could get messy.  Well, Metrokane has come up with the Metrokane V1 Wine Preserver Decanter, which comes with a pump and a gauged stopper specifically designed for their decanter.  This actually is a very good idea.  It works in the same manner as any of the preservation pumps.

Another method of preserving is by adding harmless inert gas to bottle just as Vintners does with wine barrels. Inert gas is added to the bottle to displace oxygen, the same oxygen that causes wine to spoil.  You have the option of buying a can of inert gas that comes with a straw that you can spray into the partial full bottle of wine then immediately recap the wine.  If you intend to recap the wine a second time you will need to repeat the process.  This will preserve the wine much longer than the preservation pumps.  It’s advertised that a can should last 80 to 100 applications. I don’t know call me crazy but that sounds like a lot but even if it’s half that it’s still worthwhile.

Wine Keeper Wine Preservation system is another option for preserving your wine.  This is a more expensive option but on the home system a gas canister will preserve up to 25 wine bottles.  You can also buy a manifold kit that will preserve 3 bottles at one time this allows you to preserve multiple bottles of wine.  This system has a faucet or tap, which dispenses the wine, very convenient.  This is the same system restaurants and bars use but on a much smaller scale.  Avid wine lovers would find this system very beneficial.

There are a number of different tools for wine preservation to protect the quality of your wine with a wide price range.  You just need to see which ones right for you and your budget.  The thing to remember is if you don’t preserve your left over wine you won’t enjoy it later.