For ten years, I ran a Wine Education program at a major university. Our program involved lots of tastings and, to reduce costs, we looked at various wine preservation systems. An inexpensive pump and plug system called Vacuvin won out on that day, though I have tried other experiments in preservation.

For example, one Thanksgiving, I opened four bottles of a tasty inexpensive Spanish red from Campo de Borja. About halfway down, I stoppered each one.

One got a dose of inert gas – a CFC-free product called Winelife. Another got Vacuvin. A third got its own cork replaced and the fourth was wrapped in plastic wrap All the bottles were stored in a cool place.

A few days later, my dinner guests and I re-opened the wines. The Vacuvin wine was unanimously regarded as the tastiest. The Winelife inert gas wine was judged closest to the original taste. The corked and plastic wrapped versions were a little bit vinegary but drinkable. The result? Vacuvin was easier to use than Winelife, but the gas system did hold out promise for those who might want to keep a bottle for more than a day or two.

Still, it appears that Vacuvin keeps wines fresher longer than any of the systems available at reasonable price.

The ideas behind Vacuvin are pretty simple.

First, air is the enemy of an open bottle of wine. Bacteria in the air want to turn alcohol into vinegar. The air itself oxidizes and dulls the taste of all but the most robust wines.

Second, you can remove some of the air with a simple pump and thereby slow down the rate at which wine deteriorates.

As with marriage and pet ownership, you’ll be happiest with this device if you have realistic expectations. Vacuvin slows the deterioration of wine in the bottle, but it doesn’t stop it. The wine is preserved, not embalmed and what you can expect is wine that’s as good on the second day as on the first (if not slightly better), good on the third day and probably okay on the fourth.

You should also be aware of the question of temperature. The biochemical reactions that kill your wine are temperature sensitive. They proceed faster when the wine is warm and slow down when it’s cool. Putting a pumped-out bottle in the refrigerator or wine cooler will slow down the spoilage processes and make Vacuvin more effective.

A third issue is the way the wine is handled before the Vacuvin plug goes in. If wine is decanted and then poured back into the original bottle for storage, some air is going to be dissolved in the wine and neither Vacuvin or any other system will stop spoilage. You’ll get better results by not shaking or swirling the bottle unnecessarily.

People also disagree about what constitutes ‘preservation’. Some wine lovers like the slightly more developed, softer taste of a wine that has a bit of air on it. They call it ‘maturation’. Others find that taste disagreeable and call it ‘over the hill’.

So, if you are a person or family who: only drinks part of a bottle with dinner; likes to have several bottles of wine opened at once so that you can have two or more different tastes with your meal; then it’s probably worth investing in a Vacuvin set to see what works with the wines you save.

Lynn Hoffman is the author of bang BANG, a romantic thriller about sex, death and gun violence. He is also a wine and travel writer and author of The New Short Course in Wine
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