In the tasting room we get asked quite a lot, how long does wine last once opened? We get asked enough that we have decided to put together a blog post to help answer this question.
As soon as you open a bottle of wine the air exposed to the once sealed vessel has an immediate effect. Some of the changes that occur instantly are actually welcomed by most. Many wines require time to ‘breath’ before consumption. For example, hard and tannic red wines will generally soften and provide more fruity aromas. But you don’t away want a wine to soften too much; fresh and fruit-forward white wines are at their best when they are first opened.
On the second day, some wines may actually be better, provided the cork or cap was placed back on it the night before. By day three, most wines will be past their prime. Most of the fruit will start to fade, and any acidity in the wine will become more pronounced. Anything after three days is now essentially vinegar and won’t be very pleasant to drink.
Here are a few things to help your wine last longer.
1) Refrigerate the wine. By cooling the wine, you are slowing down the rate in which the wine reacts to the open air.
2) Removing the oxygen from the bottle helps to prevent those reactions from happening. You can remove oxygen by:
a) Transfering the wine to a smaller bottle. This will reduce the amount of air in the open space within the bottle.
b) Using a vacuum pump to evacuate the air from your bottle.
c) Adding an inert gas to your bottle so that it forms a protective blanket over the wine’s surface.
These are just some of the tricks that we use to keep our opened wine at its best for as long as possible. Do you have a trick that works well for you? We would love to hear from you!