February 1, 2006

A Wine Preservation System That Works?

OK, so I've got six quarter-full bottles of good Cabernet sitting on my dining room table. I am in denial about tossing them out. I opened them four days ago for our wine party so they're probably all nasty by now. But I can't quite bring myself to toss them. Unfortunately, I've not tried anything that works when it comes to saving a bottle of wine and end up crying as I pour it down the sink. I've tried stoppers. They are pretty lame. Those plastic vaccuums don't do much either. I'm too cheap to invest in some nitrogen pump that looks like it might blow up my house. Some say sticking a bottle of red in the refridgerator for a day or two will help preserve it. That's not worked very well for me.
Anyway, I was listening to NPR's interminable fund drive this morning and they were gabbing about a device called the ReServe Preservation system. (Give NPR $30 a month and you get the ReServe system and a tote bag free!!!)
According to the company's website, ReServe pumps Argon, the most neutral gas -- a gas that won't react with wine -- into your bottle. The website says that wiinemakers have used Argon for decades to top off barrels during the winemaking process because it safely displaces oxygen from the bottle to reduce oxidation of the wine. (Oxidation spoils the bottle.) Here's what the ReServe people have to say about the system, which looks like a microphone stuck to a pumping device that you stick on a bottle. It actually looks pretty easy to use. "In tests with recognized wine experts, ReServe preserved over sixty wines at "restaurant quality" by an average of over 6 days, a significant improvement over other preservation systems." A quick surf netted prices between $125 to $200 for ReServe, which is sold by Williams Sonoma and Marshall Fields. I hope to review the system in a future post.

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