How to Preserve Leftover Wine

8 of 9 in Series:
The Essentials of Serving and Storing Wine

How can you preserve leftover wine if you don't finish the bottle? The best method of preserving wine varies depending on the type of wine and how much is left in the bottle.

A sparkling-wine stopper, a device that fits over an opened bottle, is really effective in keeping any remaining Champagne or sparkling wine fresh (often for several days) in the refrigerator.

What do you do when you have red or white wine left in the bottle? You can put the cork back in the bottle if it still fits, and put the bottle into the refrigerator. (Even red wines will stay fresher there; just take the bottle out to warm up about an hour before serving it.)

Four other methods are also reliable in keeping your remaining wine from oxidizing; these techniques are all the more effective if you put the bottle in the fridge after using them:

• If you have about half a bottle of wine left, simply pour the wine into a clean, empty half-sized wine bottle and recork the smaller bottle. You might want to buy a few wines in half-bottles, just to make sure that you have the empty half-bottles around.

  
  



• Use a handy, inexpensive, miniature pump called a Vac-U-Vin in most wine stores. This pump removes oxygen from the bottle, and the rubber stoppers that come with it prevent additional oxygen from entering the bottle. It’s supposed to keep your wine fresh for up to a week, but it may not always work that well.

  
  



• Buy small cans of inert gas in some wine stores. Just squirt a few shots of the gas into the bottle through a skinny straw, which comes with the can, and put the cork back in the bottle. The gas displaces the oxygen in the bottle, thus protecting the wine from oxidizing. Private Preserve is a good brand, and highly recommended.

  
  



• A device called WineSavor is a flexible plastic disk that you roll up and insert down the bottle’s neck. Once inside the bottle, the disk opens up and floats on top of the wine, blocking the wine from oxygen.

  
  

To avoid all this bother, just drink the wine! Or, if you’re not too fussy, just place the leftover wine in the refrigerator and drink it in the next day or two — before it goes into a coma.

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Source:http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-preserve-leftover-wine.html