accessories

Well Preserved

What happens to you when you have leftover wine? Some of you might be asking “WHAT leftover wine!” – and often that is the case. But, as many wine blogger friends can attest, we often open more than one bottle a night, and don’t finish one or both. So what is a thirsty girl to do to save the wine?

There are several preservation systems on the market today. Until now, I (sadly, not often enough) used the tried and tested VacUVin, which is a sytem of rubber stoppers and a vacuum pump by which you remove all of the air in the bottle of wine. Usually, wines stored and vacuumed last 3-5 days. Stick ‘em in the fridge, and you might be lucky to get a week.

Enter the connosiers preservation system, the Private Preserve, where argan gas replaces the oxygen with inert gas. I’ve never actually tried this preservation method, but I hear it is more effective than the VacUvin.

Recently, a Vintage Cellars of San Marcos, CA contacted me about reviewing something from their webstore. They sell

a variety of wine storage solutions and accessories, and I said what the heck, I love wine knick knacks.

When I opened the WineKeeper box,the first thing I noticed was how stinking HUGE the canister was. The Wine Keeper is similar to Private Preserve, where you replace the oxygen in the wine bottle with inert gas; in this case, it is nitrogen, altough wine keeper does indeed also make an argan model. The nigtrogen canister is roughly the size of a half gallon of milk, wide ans quat. Attached to this, a small hose goes in the wine bottle. A splitter at the end attached to a spigot that is attached to the top of the wine bottle with a gasket, making an airtight seal. Once you open the valve, the gas replaces the air, theortetically preserving the wine.

I Tried the Wine Keeper on a bottle of pinot, but promptly forgot about it. I left the wine alone for about a week, and then remebered that I should taste it to see where it was going. Since I knew this bottle of wine was orginally decent, I figured it should keep fairly well in tact, even if it was a tad oxydied. Unfortunately, when I poured a glass, it was terrible. It was source, oxydied and off. Exactly waht you would expect if you elft a botle of wine open for a week. Sadly, since I had the gas in the bottle, it did not fare any better.
I think I will need to try again side by side witha VacUVin and the same kind of wine and perhaps not wait a week.

I also think that the optional argan cansiter, which is much smaller, would make this an optin for more people. The nitrogen cansiter is bulky and difficult to store. Perhaps if you were a restaurant or had many bottles of wine open (there are optional multiple bottle splitters) this could work, but for one botle – I’ll stick iwth my old school technology.

The sytem is $99 and one nitrogen canister should last for up to 20 bottles. If not for the price, I would have given it a higher grade. That said, I do think it’s a valuable tool for people that have many bottles open at once, and is invaluable for restaurants. My question is, what is the difference between this and a $15 can of Private Preserve, a Nitron, Argan and CO2 blend. Both of these systems force oxygen out of the bottle and replace it with inert gas.

The classic VacuVin also displaces the oxygen by sucking it out of the bottle creating a…well..vacuum. For $15, this device comes with 2 stoppers that will last you lifetime.

I have heard that these two types of preservation systems can cause adverse effects to the wine. While I haven’t personally experienced this, I have also tested the Wine Shield wine preservation discs which are a film of plastic designed to prevent direct air contact with the wine.

Grade after three days: B+
In contrast, a VacuVin-ed bottle, kept in the fridge, has been known to last over 5 days while still being reasonabley fresh. 3 days of VacuVin deserve an A for freshness and flavor.

Grade after one week: C-

So if you want to splurge on something that a wineaux might not have, go for it! Otherwise, I think there are better solutions out there. Great idea, but over the top for the average wine consumer.

Thank you to Vintage Cellars for sharing this contraption with me! I would love to get the multi mount, which allows you to split the canister in to three spigots, as I can see this being a very useful device during one of my many live taste events, when multiple bottles are opened and often not immediately consumed.

Breathe baby breathe!

Oct 21st, 2011

by winebratsf.

3 comments

We all know that I am not always the most patient person. No, I don’t like to wait in line, wait for batch jobs to process, or (shocker here) wait for wine to open up. While I do love the art of the decanter, if I’m saving a red for dinner, I don’t always want to wait for hours for a big cab to show her glory.

So here I sit, on a cold foggy San Francisco fall night, with a big cab. But I want it now! What is a wine blogger to do? Why pull out her handy dandy aerator collection of course!

Tonight, I will be tasting the 07 Rodney Strong Rockaway first, straight from the bottle, and then with the Vinturi, the Soiree, the Rabbit, and then after decanting.

Right out of hte bottle, the wine is tight, and full of tannins and chewy leather. once you run it through the Vinturi, it immediately softens up and shows more fruit, but is still very tight and shows licorice and dark meaty flavors. The Vinturi claims that When wine is poured through the device, the internal mechanism “creates an increase in the wine’s velocity and a decrease in its pressure. This pressure difference draws in air which is mixed with wine for perfect aeration”. I don’t know about THAT but it does force air in to the wine, speeding up the oxidation process, or opening the wine up.

Now, using the Wine Soiree, a bulbus device that you put on top of the wine bottle, and the wine flows all around it. The Soiree fits on top of the bottle, and when you turn the bottle all the way upside down, the wine flows all around the sphere. According to Soiree, the bottle top device is not just an aerator, but rather, a bottle top decanter. I rather like this description because it really is more than an aerator. First of all, you freak all your friends out when you pour the bottle upside down.

The Wine Soiree creates an “intermediary stage where the wine is infused with oxygen and then cascades into your glass”. In doing so, the subtleties are released, and you get more details out of the wine faster.

What I immediately notice with the soiree vs the Vinturi is that the wine is softer, and has more black and blue fruit coming out. The tannins are softer, and the chewy licorice has lessened. Even tasting the wine again, there is much more tightness and astringency left in that glass.

Finally, I used the Rabbit Aerating Pourer. At first glance, it looks very similar to the

Soiree; it fits on top of the bottle and has a bulbous shape where the wine flows around. It behaves in a similar way, but there was a touch of bitter coffee left in the wine. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I think it doesn’t quite capture the subtleties that the soiree does.

So, what’s the verdict?

Top Honors: Wine Soiree, from $25, excellent gift sets available this season

Honorable Mention: Rabbit Wine Aerator, $30

While the Vinturi is well known, and now available at Costco for less than the retail $40, my thoght is that you can upgrade your Soiree for the same price and be much happier.

Happy shopping!

Cover me!

Sep 16th, 2011

by winebratsf.

4 comments

If you’re like me, it is a rare day when we have leftover wine. Actually, that’s not entirely true – I often have leftover wine. Until the next day! If you’re not like me however, and you need to preserve your wine for a day or more, and protect it from the elements, you might need a way to keep those flavors in tact as you work your way through the bottle.

I recently had the chance to try a new wine preservation system, The Wine Shield. This oddly strange looking device literally covers the wine in the bottle, forming a barrier to the air that can damage (ok fine change) the wine.

I will admit, when I first got the package I was skeptical. I am a VacUVin user, and have been since I started drinking wine. I couldn’t figure out how a system that doesn’t take the air OUT of the bottle was actually going to work.

How does it do it? Well, these clear plastic disks, just slightly thicker than saran wrap really, are packed up neatly in a sleeve. YOu insert them in the bottle with a special dohicky and if all goes right – it deploys and lays flat on top o the wine, preventing any oxygen from getting to the surface area. Essentially, it’s a clear, disposable cork.

Did it work? Actually, yes. It did work. I left a bottle open (but corked) for three days, and tasted it along the way. While it wasn’t as fresh as a daisy on the third day, it was definately better than just leaving the cork in. At $10 for a pack of ten, it’s a buck a pop to preserve your wine. Will I give up my vacuvin? Probably not. The idea of throwing away the disks every time seems wasteful; however put against ruining a great bottle of $50 wine, it’s change. However, the use of the vacuvin requires that you hav multiple rubber stoppers, and a big arm muscle. That said, you can reuse them ad infinitum.

The best way to preserve your wine in my opinion is to drink it! Barring that, an inert gas system that displaces the air with argon or nitrogen. The catch with inert gas systems is that they are costly and can be difficult (see my review coming up!). For day to day use, The Wine Shield is a great gadget.

‘Grade: B+. Give em a try! Final thoughts – it had about the same results as the VacUVin, but was a bit harder to get the hang of. If you are opening a lot of bottles, say for a tasting, it’s a great way to preserve them. Would I buy more? You bet!

Through the wine glass…and other tales of wine tasting

Aug 5th, 2010

by winebratsf.

19 comments

There is often a lot of discussion controversy about the use of specific wine glasses in wine tasting; does a wine glass make a difference in how a wine tastes? Does size really matter? Or in this case, does SHAPE matter more? Personally, I think that size and shape are critical for discovering the nuances in some of the finer wines, and particularly good Pinot. Different shaped glasses aim the wine at different points in your mouth, therefore highlighting flavors more strongly than others. All this with the shape of a glass.

But what do you do when you don’t want to have 17 individual wine glasses? Is there really ONE glass that you can use for ALL red wine? Or all white wine? Not that I drink that much white wine these days… Personally, I have many all purpose wine glasses, but I still ensure that all of my Pinot Noir is served from Pinot specific glasses because I want to make sure that the subtleties of the wine are captured when I take a sip. I have often been in the situation where all wines are served in hotel type glassware, or “occasion” glassware – the kind you get at a wine festival for example, and not enjoying the wines I was recently at a bar having a glass of Pinot that was served in a small Chianti type glass, and it just left something wanting. I know the wine was better than that. Enter a different wine glass, and the expereince can dramatically change. So, fo rthat purpose, I have many generic, mostly Bordeaux shaped glasses that I use for every day, a few different shapes of Pinot glasses, and a lot of event glasses that I avoid except for parties.

Andrea Robinson, wine expert and master sommelier, has developed a new wine glass called “The One” that promises to be the only wine glass you need. There is one for red wine, and one for white one, and the red glass closely resembles some of the lesser known Pinot glasses I have seen. To determine if I would be able to use just ONE glass for all of my red wine needed, I selected two control wines:

A Pinot Noir, because that is what I drink most of right now. A Syrah, because that is the thing I drink when I’m not drinking Pinot Noir or Rose.

To control the taste test, I chose a Pinot Noir that I knew I liked. I did that because I didn’t want to run the risk of opening a sample or a wine I wasn’t familiar with. I also selected a Riedel Pinot Noir glass, the large classic Burgundy balloon, and a generic Pinot Glass that I got at Pinot Days last year.

I sipped. I sniffed. I tasted. I sipped some more.

First: The Riedel, my go to Pinot Glass, actually accentuated to omuch of the bitter spiecde and wood characteristics of the wine. I was a bit mifed at this since I knew I loved this wine.

Next, I tried the generic Pinot Days glass. mmmm there was my old friend, the rich spicy juicy raspberry Pinot. That was more like it.

Finally, I tasted the wine out of Andrea’s glass. Ok it was good, but the cherry berry cola accents were too strong for my taste.

Ok, let’s let the wine sit for bit.

Same thing. So, score one for generic, zero for Andrea.

Next, my sample set was a syrah. Again, a wine I know and love. This time I selected a generic event glass, with the basic Bordeaux shape, but smaller. I also selected a Cost Plus Connessieur stem, which is made by Spiegulau, which is now owned by Reidel. Pretty much the same line up as the Pinot Noir blind sample.

For this wine, The One faired just as well as a generic tasting glass. The wine was lovely, and the nuances of flavor were showing through.

One thing that I really love about these glasses, all shapes and sizes being said, is that they are tough. I am really hard on my glasses. I knock them over (frequently). I bang them in my sink. I crash them against

dishes. The One did NOT break! For that reason alone, I would buy some for general use. At $50 for a set of 4, they are reasonable, especially if they last through a party or bashing them around.

The verdict: If you are a Pinot Noir snob, I’d make sureyou have a couple of specialty glasses on hand for that purpose. I am picky about my Pinot Noir glasses, and I do believe that different shapes impact how you percieve the flavor of a wine, particularly if you have a developed palate. the reason this happens is that different shapes target the wine on different centers of taste buds in your mouth. There is a lot of controversy abuot these tounge maps, but I find that for me – it’s true.

If you’d like to try The One by Andrea Robinson for yourself, I have a set to give away, 1 white, 1 red. Just leave a comment and tell me why you need a new wine glass! I’d love it if you wrote about your opinion as well, but that’s not required.