I sometimes use red or white wine when I cook. That means I often have a half opened bottle of wine, with a cork in it, sitting on my kitchen counter. It may take 2 or 3 weeks to finally use it all up (if my wife and I don’t happen to drink it first).
My question is should I immediately put the opened, but corked, bottle of wine in the refrigerator or can I just leave it on the counter for a a period of time without it “going bad”? And do the rules apply equally to either red or white wine or is there a difference? (If it matters the house it kept at about 65 degrees this time of year.)
I have never seen a bottle go bad, but I assume that as soon as you open it you are exposing it to bacteria, even if it is then immediately corked, and eventually that will lead to spoilage. I just don’t know how long eventually is…
Thankfully, due to the acidity (~3.5 pH) and ethyl alcohol content of wine, any spoilage that occurs in your situation will be detectable by your nose before you drink the wine. Unlike if, for example, you made a mistake canning vegetables and inoculated your can with C. botulinum…
Refrigerating the wine will retard the growth of acetic acid bacteria (AAB). This is good. Unfortunately, oxygen by itself will oxidize wine, causing changes you may not want, and the solubility of oxygen gas into an aqueous solution increases by about 50% if you chill the solution from 20 C to 0 C. I’m not sure if the lower temperature’s slowing down the reaction kinetics makes up for the increased O2 though.
My solution to the problem is to get a funnel and a half bottle, and pour the remaining wine into the half bottle, then recork. Add glass marbles to minimize the air gap (ullage) as much as possible. Stick the recorked bottle into the fridge and you’re golden. For a little while anyways. Other people swear by pumps, or nitrogen gas canisters.
Your method seems to work for you. If I had the fridge space, I’d put the wine in the fridge. Neither method is likely to harm you. It is interesting watching wine evolve for several days this way, especially varieties/types like Chenin Blanc, Port, young Bordeaux, Cahors.