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rld
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Anyhow, some
time ago I extolled the virtues of the Wine Saver, a device that pumps air out
of opened wine bottles, extending the life of that bottle by a few days.
I didn’t have the engineering know how to explain how or why it worked.
I bought one, found out it worked, and knew at $5.99, it was a worthwhile
investment for anyone who opens a bottle of wine and can’t or doesn’t want
to polish it off (needless to say, Wino Bob doesn’t need one of these unless
he’s tapped into bottle number two or three for the night!). Imagine my
surprise the other day when I opened my October 2002 Popular Science and
found a review of “wine-saver gadgets”.
According to the guys at PS, leaving an open bottle of wine out long
enough could result in the wine “smelling like sweaty socks or wet
cardboard” (sounds like Wino Bob’s vino at the Boss’ Chi-Town concert).
PS spends some time discussing the process of fermentation, bacteria’s
need for oxygen to grow, and how a sealed bottle of wine keeps oxygen away from
those critters. (Editor's note: I have a whole new
respect for WinoWally. Popular Science???!!!) PS conducted an
experiment comparing the taste of a German Riesling opened for a week and a
Pinot Noir opened for three days. Both
wines were sealed with a wine saver device and their taste was compared to a
fresh bottle of the same wine. Wines
were tasted “blind”. Wine
lovers were able to discern the difference between the fresh wine and the
resealed wine. Casual wine drinkers
were not able to discern the difference. The
conclusion, you might ask? Popular
Science copped out by stating that a test with a larger population of wine
drinkers might be truly scientific. In
the meantime, they say that if you buy a medium-priced bottle of wine (between
$10 and $20 per bottle), you may be better off drinking it all or refrigerating
it. Gang, I say
that’s a cop out. I’ve used my wine saver (from Vacu Vin) for almost 10 years
and it has definitely extended the life of many nice bottles.
Sometimes they were opened for guests who had to have one more drink even
though we had just killed the previous bottle.
Sometime, the wine was opened because my wife wanted another glass and
you know how we never turn down that request.
Get your wine saver now. Use
it. You won’t be sorry.
Meanwhile, send me any of your unscientific research on the topic and
I’ll make sure we publish it here. WinoWally
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