We have a wine stopper that you have to pump to get the air out; it’s a royal pain in the ass. You pump it and pump it till hell won’t have it, then it’s supposed to click a couple times which tells you you’re done; there’s got to be a better way. I’ve been online looking for a stopper that’s easier to deal with, but there are many varieties and I don’t know which is best. Our wine doesn’t sit for long (we drink wine every day), but we are by no means wine connoisseurs, and have no idea how best to stopper it. Your recommendations, please.
My Dad is a wine connoisseur, and he uses a spraycan type thing. You put the nozzle of the can into the neck of the wine bottle and go to town.
I’m not a wine connoisseur, so I couldn’t say if it works or not. All the high-end wine purveyors like them.
Finish the bottle and it won’t be a problem.
Once again, I find myself in agreement with my friend silenus
That’s what I use. I figure I get an extra day or two out of my regular wines, and an extra couple of weeks or so on Port, Sherry, dessert wines, etc.
My method - Private Preserve (one brand of said ‘spraycan type thing.’) and either of these two:
I have a whole mess of bar top corks from work in one of our kitchen drawers. If it’s a wine I think I will drink the next day, I may skip the gas and just plug it with one of those or the actual cork from the bottle and put it in the fridge.
If it’s something I think will be in there longer than a day, especially the fortified or sweet wines, then I use a steel cork along with the gas before putting it in the fridge. I really, really love the steel corks. The combo of the gas/steel cork is the the best life extender as far as I’ve noticed.
The vacuum pumps are pretty worthless, IMO.
Definitely store them in the fridge, however you seal them. And drink within a week for table wines.
I’ll second psycat90 - I’ve tried every method of wine preservation known to man, and the only thing that makes any difference at all is refrigerating the wine. Stick the cork that came with the wine back in the bottle, or buy a few fancy corks (I use the ones that came with the Vacu-Vin, but I don’t bother vacuuming anymore), and stick it in the fridge.
The drawback is, of course, that you need to pull the red wines out of the fridge a bit before you drink them, but that works out as well - most reds benefit by being slightly cooler than room temperature. Not fridge cool, but a little bit cool.
Typically, we manage to kill one of the big bottles in two days, so just using the cork might be the way to go. I’ll check out the others mentioned. Never thought about putting red wine in the fridge; I think I’d like it a little cooler than room temp. Thanks all.