The Wine Vacuum – Store It, Don’t Pour It!

Another handy dandy gadget every wino needs for their wine bar is the the Wine Vacuum. What the heck is a wine vacuum you ask! Well I’m going to try to explain it. Here goes nothing!

Often you buy wine and don’t finish the bottle for whatever reason but you don’t want to waste it and aren’t sure how to preserve it or if you are like me you like to experiment with lot’s of different wines every night and don’t wait for “special” occasions to drink, everyday is a special occasion in my book, hell I’m alive and super healthy that’s worth celebrating!  So there you are in your living room sitting back, feet up immersed into your favorite weekly series or book when you get up to go to bed only to realize you have half of bottle left. Damn it! Your liver is on overload but you don’t want to pour this yummy dinner down the drain…so you need an alternative.

What is one to do? Some would try to insert the cork back into the bottle with great strenuous effort and little success while others are a bit smarter and use decorative wine stoppers. The problem with the cork is that while you may get it back into the bottle it will more than likely suffer breakage and cracking which exposes the wine to oxygen. The decorative wine stopper while cute, also doesn’t stop oxygen from reaching the wine.

Why does that matter?
When you open a bottle of wine it is instantly exposed to air and when wine is exposed to air for any extended period of time, let’s say overnight,  it turns or rather is oxidized or spoiled which tastes flat or stale. In order to finish that lovely bottle of wine that you started you need to remove the oxygen from the bottle and the best tool to do this is a pump which comes in many styles and names. One of my favorite is the Vacu Vin Preserver for $10.99 which comes with one rubber stoppers. The idea behind the pump is that it sucks the air out of the bottle allowing you to get a one or two more days out of the wine. It won’t preserve it forever and every wine is different but I usually get one to two additional drinking days which is more than enough time for me to finish the bottle off before it spoils or goes flat and I don’t have to waste it!

Whether you purchase The VacuVin Pump or whatever, they should all “click” when you’ve successfully extracted all the air from the bottle. This doesn’t take a mental giant to work and is an added benefit to your wine tool kit and your pocket book. Make sure to purchase extra stoppers because more than likely your going to use them, especially if you entertain and have a few bottles of your favorite wine left!