Wife and I open ed a bottle of Zen of Zin tonight and had it with some chocolate. I am not a big zinfandel drinker so my review would be inappropriate. My wife thoroughly enjoyed it though, and said for the price it was outstanding!
When I went to put the remaining wine away in the fridge I noticed the cork was in no shape to be reused, so I used a stopper from our silverware drawer.
Which brings us to my question:
When using a wine bottle stopper (not the original cork) I always run some very hot water over it before inserting it into the bottle. My thoughts are if there is anything on the stopper it might get into the wine and contaminate it for the next time.
Is this a prudent step or am I just being silly and paranoid? After using the stoppers we always run them through the dishwasher any way. It’s not like running them under hot water takes a significant 20 seconds out of my day. I’m just curious.
Like I said, I’m not a big zin drinker. I’m a philistine. Make it a Rhine, a sangria, a white zinfandel, even a Riesling, and there wouldn’t be a drop left.
The biggest issue is not contaminants but oxygen. The alcohol in wine would kill any parasites or germs or whatever-the-heck you are being paranoid about so that whole ritual of rinsing off a stopper with hot water is ludicrous.
What is going to destroy the flavor of the wine is the fact that it is now being subjected to oxygen and the best thing you can do in the future is acquire a wine preservation system. They are not that expensive and range from the Vacu-Vin wherein you pump the oxygen out of the bottle to inert gases which are heavier than oxygen, ostensibly providing an protective layer against that which would destroy the wine.
In either case above, you usually have less than a week to consume the wine before it begins to turn any way. But the wine you just put a stopper in? To me, it would be undrinkable within 24 hours (but I am an admitted wine snob).
I have bottles of my home brew which I keep in the fridge, red and white. My family’s Italian, and even though there’s a family vineyard somewhere back in the old country, none of my uncles seem to care if wine is especially potable or not.
That having been said, I do use stoppers to save up bottles that I drink over the course of say, a semester at school. It really doesn’t seem to damage a 3 dollar bottle of homebrew much.
I will say this though: check that damn seal. I have two stoppers, and one sometimes doesn’t go all the way in. If it doesn’t, that bottle becomes arm and hammer baking soda; it absorbs EVERY odor lurking in the fridge. THEN you have committed a grave solecism, lol.
My personal solution to this is simple: don’t drink white wine.
What!?
…but realistically, wine goes dud in fridge. Drink the next day, if you want it to be “proper”…but on the other hand, sheesh, its fermented grape juice, and its not gonna hurt ya one way or t’other. Well, except the alcohol.
I’m of the school of thought which believes there are only two kinds of wine; the one where you drink it and say to yourself, “Hey, that’s not too bad! Let’s have two more bottles of that.” And the other, where you drink it and say, “Christi! What is that? Hairspray?? Throw it away!”
So then, knowing that, I say a wine stopper is only useful just so you don’t accidently knock over the bottle and spill wine all over the carpet.
But I’m a texan with no taste buds to speak of, so I probably would just skip over this post if’n I was you.
