Half bottles anyone?

[dinhhanh]

We've cut back on our wine consumption at dinner from a full bottle to only half a bottle, re-plugging the remnant half and sticking it in the fridge. Problem is, we don't always get back to it quickly and it fades after only a day or two. I've tried the usual means of preservation and am not impressed with results.

So - How to obtain half bottles of Bordeaux? Vendors in this area don't seem to carry them. Am interested only in St Julien wines, which we've found to be most consistent and dependable.

[stefan]

Freeze the leftover half bottle in a full bottle. I learned that here on BWE. This works even with Champagne!

[DavidG]

Stefan's advice is good. Sometimes the wine will seem a bit less acidic after freezing, but for the most part freezing is an excellent preservation method that can keep the wine fresh for weeks to months.

Much more expensive alternatives are the Coravin and Pungo devices, which use argon gas and a needle that you insert through the cork to expel a glass at a time without actually opening the bottle and exposing the wine to air. They are extremely effective, though there is some debate over how long the wine can go after first puncturing the cork. Some say years, other say a few months. I think it depends on how well sealed the cork remains after that initial access. The gadgets cost about $300, plus the recurring cost of argon cartridges.

[AKR]

You could take your 750ml upon opening, and pour half into a split, seal it and put in the fridge. That will reduce the amount of oxygentation and keeping it cold will also retard the process - since it was exposed to air. (And there's some dissolved in the wine anyways) With young red wines that should be good for a couple of days.

I would not do this with anything old or delicate.

If you want to just buy half bottles to start with, there are some retailers who make extra efforts to stock them. (Zachys, Grand Vin among others) But I usually find its best to order that size en primeur, to minimize the premium one pays for the special size. However there's a non zero chance your bottling request for size will for one reason or another end up not being honored. You'll get your surcharge back, and 750mls. My life experience is that happens maybe 10% of the time. If you want splits, you'll also need to order larger quantities -- so if you don't need as much, find friends in your area who can share allocations with you. If you do things like that: keep good records as friendships can get frayed if memories, emails, spreadsheets are not in alignment.

Totally grasp that DavidG and Stefan have both way more scientific knowledge and lifetime consumption than me....but I just can't accept this concept of freezing as being an ok solution. I can definitely taste when food has been frozen, and in nearly every case food tastes better when fresh. (Bread may be one of those things where I don't blink an eye over freezing stuff. Also some people freeze freshly slaughtered chickens for a day prior to consumption, but we only use grocery store case ready chicken) So I don't see how a consumer freezing can be good/acceptable for fine wine. I would rather accept some oxidation by just saving in the fridge in a smaller bottle (to keep the O2 exposure lower). There are some commercial superfast cooling freezers that are used in the offshore seafood processing industry that supposedly can freeze things so fast that ice crystals do not have time to form within the cells of organic material being frozen, thus preventing the rupturing process that ruins the taste of many foods.

[DavidG]

Saving in a half-bottle immediately on opening helps, but the simple act of transferring the wine dissolves some oxygen in it. Freezing wine is different than freezing foods. You don't have cells releasing autolytic enzymes. Try it, Arv, you might be pleasantly surprised.

[AKR]

Saving in a half-bottle immediately on opening helps, but the simple act of transferring the wine dissolves some oxygen in it. Freezing wine is different than freezing foods. You don't have cells releasing autolytic enzymes. Try it, Arv, you might be pleasantly surprised.

I have tried, although have NOT done a side by side comparison with one split frozen, and one sealed up in a split at fridge temp. That to me would be a better test.

But the few times I tried it, it didn't feel / taste the same. This was admittedly a long time ago when I was single and had more need for saving wine for another day.

Now its less of an issue. At any given pt in time now theres a couple of bottles open in the fridge, since we cycle through it.

[AlohaArtakaHoundsong]

Arv, if you've tried it and didn't like it, fair enough. I think I'm the madman who first reported this here. I have found it to be far superior to even the small-headspace refrigeration method. The wine might not be exactly as on day one but it is very close in bouquet and flavor/structure. The only "downside" is that almost always this will cause some crystals to form and fall out as sediment. This is a negligible detriment in my experience. And if I want to drink the frozen wine I just thaw the bottle in warm water. Ready to pour in as little as 15 minutes. But to each his or her own. Cheers.

[DavidG]

Agree with Hound. If it didn't work for you, it didn't work. Could be the decrease in acid due to precipitation that made it less enjoyable. I haven't frozen a wine in over a decade, but found it a pretty good preservative most of the time.