One of my wine industry jobs was with the Wine Appreciation Guild, one of the industry’s largest publishers of wine books and a one stop distributor of both wine books and accessories. My job was to sell wine books and wine accessories to wineries for their tasting rooms, to wine shops, and to other specialty merchants in 42 California counties.
http://www.wineappreciation.com
There are many people here on the interwebs that know about wine, and I’ll carve my own niche by writing from the heart about wine as a means to an end, a beverage to be enjoyed with family and friends, as opposed to the end itself. I am not the guy to read if you are looking for a review of the nearly unattainable, released in three bottle maximum allotment to people on THE LIST only, cult Napa Cab or Russian River Valley Pinot. I love wine, know wine, can share my knowledge; but I am a regular guy.
In addition to telling you about a wine in context, who I shared it with, the food we ate with it, I can also tell you about a good wine book or wine gadget. Go with what you know, I wrote recently, and I will. Out of the thousands of wine writers inhabiting the web, I have unique knowledge. Hopefully, my writing will find an audience thirsty for what I am pouring.
Vacu-Vin. There is no wine preservation system more ubiquitous. Gwyneth Paltrow told Oprah that it is a “must-have” in her kitchen. Every frau and pretentious wine poser in the country has one. Sales of the devices number in the tens of millions.
For the one or two of you who are unfamiliar with Vacu-Vin, here’s what the manufacturers say
http://www.vacuvin.com/Vacuum_Wine_Saver_286_270_267.html
“The Wine Saver is a vacuum pump, which extracts the air from the opened bottle and re-seals it with a re-usable rubber stopper. Place the re-usable stopper in the bottle and extract the air from the bottle using the Wine Saver pump. A “click” sound tells you when you have reached the optimum vacuum level. The vacuum slows down the oxidation process which makes it possible to enjoy your wine again at a later date. The question “how often do I have to pump?” is a thing of the past. The unique and patented vacuum indicator will emit a “click” sound when the correct vacuum is reached.”
The Wine Appreciation Guild carried them, and everyone I worked with wanted them to sell in their stores.
I had a problem. The Vacu-Vin doesn’t work:
http://www.winelife.com/pdf/lab-report-26292-vacu-vin-test.pdf
“The “Vacu-Vin” device as submitted was evaluated to determine efficacy in reduction of oxidative spoilage in opened wines. Using the protocol described above, the “Vacu-Vin” device was found to have no measurable effect in reduction of oxidative spoilage.”
-Gordon Burns, ETS Laboratories, 1204 Church Street, St. Helena, CA 94574
http://www.winespectator.com/magazine/show/id/6257
Vacu-vin doesn’t work, It never has.
Sensorily, to me anyway, the Vacu-vin was a shuck. You could track the deterioration in each sample. Indeed, just recorking the wine worked equally as well – or as badly.
The [Wall Street] Journal asked Professor David Roe of the Portland State University chemistry department to test the gizmo…At best he achieved a vacuum of somewhat less than 70 percent…In just 90 minutes, he reported, the vacuum pressure diminished by 15 percent.
I asked Professor Roe to repeat his test with a newly purchased (newer, ‘improved’, model) Vacu-Vin. The results? “The pump is more efficient, but no more effective,” he reports. “The vacuum is the same, around 70 to 75 percent. And the leak rate is the same: After two hours you lose 25 percent of the vacuum. Overnight – 12 hours – the vacuum is totally gone.”
-Matt Kramer, “A Giant Sucking Sound…And That’s All”
http://www.consumerreports.org December 2006
What to do with leftover wine? Just put a cork in it
UNNECESSARY EQUIPMENT There’s no clear need for Vacu-Vin Vacuum Wine Saver and other wine-preservation systems, our tests suggest.
A lot of people turn to wine-preservation systems that seek to retard or stop oxidation, the chemical process that degrades wine. If you’re among those who swear by such systems, we have surprising news, based on our tests of four widely known brands: No system beat simply recorking the bottle and sticking it in the fridge.
Getting the air out…The Vacu-Vin Vacuum Wine Saver, $10, uses rubber stoppers (two are provided) with a pump that sucks out air.
We tested three varietals with the systems on three different occasions for three different periods of time. For comparison, we also stoppered one bottle with its own cork. After all the bottles spent time in our wine cellar, expert wine consultants compared their contents in blind taste tests with freshly opened bottles.
If our trained experts, with nearly 60 years in the business, couldn’t discern among wine storage systems, most consumers probably can’t, either. So just go ahead and cork it (you can turn the cork over if it’s easier to get in). But try not to wait more than a week or so to drink the wine, and sooner is better.
I would tell the buyers for the winery tasting rooms, the wine shops, and the kitchen stores that the Vacu-Vin doesn’t work – but it didn’t stop most of them, because you, the home customer, wanted to buy and use these things.
You don’t see good restaurants using Vacu-Vins to preserve their wines poured by the glass. You don’t see good wineries using Vacu-Vins in between the wine tastes they poor in their tasting rooms. NY Times wine guru Eric Asimov doesn’t pump air out of wine bottles, he doesn’t believe it does much of anything.
http://thepour.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/05/25/when-age-is-measured-in-days/
When I see a wine bar using a Vacu-Vin, I won’t drink any but the first glass from a bottle.
Here’s the deal: when you open a wine and let it breathe, you are letting tannins dissipate, alcohol flush burn off, and fruit come forward. You’ll find that the hot, harsh, and closed Cabernet at opening becomes a smooth delicious beverage with blackberry and currant notes with a little time. Oxygen is wine’s friend initially.
While I am prepping food for dinner, I usually open a bottle, or more than one bottle if cooking for friends, pour a little of each in a separate wine glass, so I can repeatedly swirl and sniff each. I am looking for the wine to open and become perfect. At that point, I recork the bottle so I can just open, pour, and seal all the way through the meal. I know the last glass will be as good as the first. Every glass perfect.
If I opened the wine, let it breathe, and then ignored it, the fruit would follow the tannins, and perfect would become sad. Oxygen, so important to a wine at opening, becomes wine’s enemy afterward. Leaving a wine open ruins wine over time.
Pumping the air out of a bottle of wine with a Vacu-Vin strips the wine of aroma and bouquet. Each time it is used it ruins the wine. To me, a couple of seconds is like hours of damage.
The Vacu-Vin doesn’t even create a complete vacuum. As tested, fully 25-30% of the air, and oxygen, remains inside the bottle – before the Vacu-Vin fails and all of the air, and oxygen, returns. To me, the worst think about the Vacu-Vin is that consumers are fooled into a false sense of preservation security and don’t seek another, effective, method to save the aroma, bouquet, and flavors of a bottle of wine in between glasses.
Matt Kramer and the Wall Street Journal engaged a University science department professor who measured the Vacu-Vin’s fail using drills and tubes and meters, all very high tech. Similar high tech methods were used by Gordon Burns of ETS Laboratories and the testers at Consumer Reports.
Look, I know that if you are into wine, you have one of these gadgets at home. Want to see it fail before your own eyes? Fill an empty wine bottle half way with mini marshmallows, use the Vacu-Vin as directed, sucking some of the air out of the bottle, creating a partial vacuum at best. As you pump, the marshmallows will swell until they fill the available space inside the bottle. You will see that, as the Vacu-Vin seal leaks and fresh air goes back into the bottle, the marshmallows shrink. You can watch the level of the marshmallows fall from bottle fill to half bottle as the Vacu-Vin fail is total.
While at the Wine Appreciation Guild, the owner Elliot Mackey, knowing my feelings about the Vacu-Vin, put me in a surprise direct face-to-face meeting with one of the company’s representatives. I felt a bit awkward, but presented him with much of the evidence I have laid out here for you. The representative assured me that he had heard these charges before and had a “wealth of anecdotal evidence” to counter it.
Just because a non critical taster, perhaps an actress appearing on Oprah, thinks that her Vacu-Vin is doing something beneficial, and allows that incorrect assumption to color expectations at tasting her old wine, self deluding herself that the wine is well preserved – just because there are tens of millions of people who got suckered, don’t know it, and think this junk works – well, so what? A wealth of anecdotal evidence does not counter evidence of Vacu-Vin’s complete lack of efficacy, nor does it counter Vacu-Vin’s fail in blind tastings performed by sommeliers and other wine professionals.
I am a believer in never presenting a problem without a possible solution. I’ve created a problem by telling the truth as I see it. There are tens of millions of people ruining their wine, thinking they are saving their wine’s quality. I know I won’t reach quite that number of readers, but for the few who do find their way to my blog, I’ll tell you how I keep wines delicious in between glasses.
I recork the bottles. Believing it matters, I use a decoratively topped, denser than normal, non-porous Corker instead of the old porous cork. If I am going to keep the wine for more than a couple of days, I pair a blast of Private Preserve (nitrogen/argon/inert gasses in a can) and the Corker and have experienced solid longer term storage.
http://www.privatepreserve.com
__________
Oil and Vinegar preservation:
For the foodies out there who have made it this far through a wine entry, I use the Private Preserve/Corker combo on my specialty oils and vinegars for the kitchen and have eliminated the oil goes rancid and vinegar goes musty equivalent of wine goes yucky.
Oh, and if you have pour spouts in your oil and vinegar, or wine, you are just letting it breathe and go bad. So unless you are Gordon Ramsey and go through multiple bottles of oil/vinegar/wine in the kitchen each night, throw away the spouts, they are as ridiculously bad as a Vacu-Vin.
Just saying’.
DISCLOSURE: I have sold Corkers in art and craft shows, I do not now. I am very experienced with their efficacy. I worked for the Wine Appreciation Guild over seven years ago, I do not now. I have not worked with Gordon Ramsey, but am willing to accept a free meal from him.
December 17, 2009 at 1:42 PM
hi John,
Have you seen the new Wine Preserva yet? They are great for road trips. Check it out: http://www.winepreserva.com/
I can send a couple of samples up for you to test if you’d like.
December 17, 2009 at 2:01 PM
Thanks Shannon; It looks brilliant. Same general idea as David Coleman’s stainless steel wine tank design, a “floating” lid is lowered to the level of the wine, eliminating oxidation. I would LOVE to review this. So simple. I sent Elliott a link to this post, since I mentioned both him and WAG. Address coming via facebook message. Ciao!
December 17, 2009 at 2:51 PM
John, As a non wine drinker, I must confess two things.
Firstly that your article has given me more knowledge than I had before reading it, it kept my attention and curiosity intake taking me through the whole article, instead of skimming as I almost always do to get through numerous articles.
Secondly, I have never become a wine drinker, really from fear. fear of unknowing one wine from another and fear of making mistakes when either purchasing or ordering a wine.
Wine for me has always been an elitist drink, although I realize peasants for centuries have using it as a staple, we in America have adopted the more snobbish air to our cousins in Europe of higher status.
I believe after reading your article that you may just be the hinge pin between two worlds. Introducing the proper etiquette of wines to the everyday use of the everyday man and woman. Bravo my friend I believe you will go far in your passion and pursuits.
Sincerely Your Friend
RK McLean, common man and poet
December 17, 2009 at 6:54 PM
Well, that is THE most comprehensive take I’ve ever read on the vacu-vin sucking… or, not sucking enough, as it were.
Cheers!
December 17, 2009 at 7:57 PM
Rob,
Two friends get together. We share some good food. We chase it with some vino. It should be that simple. If you read my recap of our 30 year reunion, you found that the time I spent the day before the reunion, at a winery with friends and food and wine, playing bocce, was as beautiful, as perfect as life gets. It could have been just okay wine, the fellowship of friends would have transformed it into wonderful wine. Don’t get hung up on rules. Drink what you like. I’ll write more. Keep reading. One day we’ll lift glasses together.
Joe,
I am deeply honored to have a visit from a famous and well respected wine blogger. Thanks for stopping in. I am going to be reviewing more wine accessories and wine books down the road, said reviews mixed in with other food and wine write ups. Oh, and as I don’t have an otherwise unneeded $11,000 to send to the FTC, I’ll disclose each instance of a free sample book or accessory being reviewed.
Vacu-Vin not working bothered me for many years. Knowing most people love it, when they should be angry with the wine shop that ripped them off, bothered me. I am just doing my bit for wine education – from the edges of a huge pool of writers and information, I’ve found a less crowded area to swim in.
Thanks all for reading.
February 19, 2010 at 12:51 AM
Thank you.
March 5, 2010 at 11:11 AM
You seem to be mingling a couple of different claims; that the partial vacuum is still too dense to help, that it doesn’t remain in the bottle, and that the vapour pressure has been reduced sufficiently to damage the wine. I’m particularly interested in the last claim (that wine vacuum pumps aren’t just a placebo, but actively harmful to wine flavour). Do you have references for it?
I ask because I have found that I can preserve the partial vacuum pretty well with another pump and stopper (not the Vacu-Vin) that I’ve supplemented with a plastic cap. I don’t believe it does much good (or any) but would like to know if it could actually do harm.
March 5, 2010 at 11:40 AM
I am not mingling the facts, so much as presenting the serial reasons why this is the most ridiculous wine accessory sold to the gullible.
Interestingly, 100% of vacu-vin owners love the product, simply because the assume it works and don’t taste critically. 100%, that is, until they are presented evidence of the product’s failure. Among owners of vacu-vin wine preservation devices who subject the product to either blind tasting or who witness the vacuum leak rate, the satisfaction percentage shrinks to a number approaching 0.
Wine aroma and bouquet are composed of volatile phenols which when subjected to vacuuming are damaged, wine is stripped and ruined. Kramer’s WS article “A Giant Sucking Sound…And That’s All” speaks to that ruination in blind nosings.
So let me be clear. Vacuum pumps change wine in the seconds it takes to use them…but not for the better. The vacuum achieved is partial and plenty wine ruining oxygen filled air remains in the bottle. The vaccum valve plugs leak, leaving enough pressure differential to make a fooling hiss sound, but allowing nearly all of the air back into the bottle in about 12 hours.
Have you tried the mini marshmallow test I described? I ask because you state you have a pump that preserves the partial vaccuum it creates, and i was wondering how that had been tested. Vacu-vin claims their pumps work too, in direct conflict with every test of efficacy I could find.
I urge you to consider Wine Preserva disks, or the cans of inert gasses that can blanket your wine from oxygen laden air.
May 14, 2010 at 6:07 PM
John, very interesting article! As a Vacu Vin user, it’s gotten me to really think about the efficacy of the product. I don’t drink wine that often, and when I do, a bottle tends to last me a few days or more. After the second day, my wine would always be oxidized, and in my opinion, barely worth cooking with.
As a chemist, I am skeptical of the nitrogen/argon systems. Since nitrogen is less dense than air, it quickly diffuses out and is replaced by air. Argon is more dense than air, so a fully argon system could work, but if it’s only a small percentage, I have my doubts it would successfully displace a good portion of oxygen and prevent diffusion, even in the time it takes to re-cork the bottle. Of course, I’d have to do the lab work to know for sure. There also will be some oxygen trapped in solution (absorbed into the wine), so even removing all of the air (by vacuum or with a argon system) can’t fully remove all of the oxygen (in a lab setting, we successively freeze, place under a high vacuum, and thaw the liquid 3 or more times to fully degas it).
To me, the vacuum system makes sense provided a good seal can be maintained. I’m trying your marshmallow experiment now, but I know after a couple of days, there is still a noticeable vacuum present (as I can’t remove the stopper without venting or a lot of brute force). Even if 25-30% of the oxygen content remains, the oxidation reaction that takes place would be slowed by about 3 times or more (given a presumed pseudo-first order oxidation reaction), meaning it would take 6 days to get to the same 2-day oxidized wine I see when just re-corking. Of course, significant leaking would allow the reaction to speed up again.
As for removing the volatile phenols (and probably some of the more volatile esters too, another part of the fruity flavor), this could be an issue. Since these are not as easy to remove as the gasses present (such as the oxygen), and not all of the oxygen is removed, I’m guessing that there is only a minor decrease in these compounds; however, each re-vacuuming certainly could make an impact. This probably explains the decrease in quality I notice over each day, but in the end, I think it still tastes better than re-corking.
I can’t say I have the most sophisticated sense of taste when it comes to wine, but in my experience, the vacuum seal system improves the taste of an opened wine compared to just re-corking. It’s never the same as the first glass, but save for drinking the entire bottle all at once (which probably wouldn’t be good for my health!), I think it’s a good, affordable alternative. I will have to pay more attention in the future though and make sure I’m not just falling prey to gullibility (I may have to get two bottles of the same wine and try both re-corking and vacuuming to really compare them). In any case, very interesting article; it’s gotten me thinking about the way I drink wine, and I’m really curious how these marshmallows will fare as of tomorrow!
May 14, 2010 at 7:06 PM
I am thrilled to hear that you are running your own experiments. I woulds love to hear the results, even if they contradict the experiences of every other physical measure of the vacuum leak rate chronicled thus far.
This is one of my more popular posts, I have new readers find me weekly. This week the following searches were among those that brought readers to my site: “friends don’t let friends vacuvin,” “does vacuvin work,” “vacuvin test,” “test vacuvin,” “vacuvin review spectator,” “www.vacuvin.com,” “”vacu vin” pressure,” and “vacu vin wine saver troubleshoot.” I’ve had 811 reads of the post this quarter, and I wrote it a long time ago (in blog time). My article probably wouldn’t exist if the Vacu-vin representative I met had bothered to respond directly to the criticisms I presented him with years ago, or had followed up with the evidence based refutation of those criticisms he promised to provide me. I was impressed, but not positively, with the evasiveness and refusal to respond directly by Vacu-vin’s representative; and the lack of promised follow through further predisposed me to believe the evidence based data demonstrating the product’s vacuum fail.
I’m not a chemist, so you can hopefully confirm or debunk the reason that the “inert gas in a can” products claim to be effective. They are generally marketed as being designed to blanket the wine from harmful oxygen. The gases aren’t intended to fully displace all of the oxygen inside the bottle, but the 1-2 second blast is supposed to cause enough inert gas, that gas being heavier than oxygen, to sink below the oxygen and provide a protective barrier.
I know that several celebrity chefs are using this method to prevent more expensive specialty oils and vinegars against becoming rancid or musty.
I have a pretty good palate, but the sommeliers who have damned the vacuvin in blind tastings work for me.
I tried a simple flexible membrane that floats on top of wine in a bottle, much like an adjustable float lid fits on top of the juice in an open top stainless steel fermenter; it was crazy simple, and worked quite well. It is called Wine Preserva.
I have had others contact me to tell me that they freeze unfinished wines, while others fill smaller plastic bottles and screw cap them closed.
It seems there are almost as many methods of wine preservation as wine brands, some more effective than others, some affording more ease than others.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for your comment.
John
October 21, 2010 at 9:33 AM
I had to search for a bit to find this article after reading a year ago and suddenly needing to reference it for some of my staff. I’m a beverage director for several restaurant concepts, and the whole group of restaurants had purchased vacu-vins before I joined the company. In fact, in my former job as a wine rep, I SOLD THEM THE VACU-VINS!
We don’t have the ability or desire to install multi-bottle preservation systems at most of the restuarants (although I want to do so for a couple of our concepts). So, I’m about to test a $20 glass pour using private preserve. I may also try a micromatic 3-bottle preservation system that uses a similar inert-gas approach.
Anyway, this article remains one of the most clear and conclusive regarding the effectiveness of the vacu-vin, and I expect you will continue to get hits and comments, especially since I’m about to forward a link to it for all of my bar managers.
Cheers and thanks!
November 23, 2010 at 4:40 PM
Jason,
Thanks for the kind words. I would love to hear how your experiences with various preservation techniques fare.
Good luck!
John
January 17, 2011 at 7:34 PM
Jason,
Thanks for your kind words. I feel your past pain, I was once asked to sell Vacu-vins as well. I refused to show them, and when asked for them, I explained why they do not work, and would tell my customers that only unethical shop owners or tasting rooms would sell something knowing it doesn’t work. There were some retail operations that did not care about people, only profits.
I found training staff in the correct application of Private Preserve and use of The Corker led to inexpensive, but perfectly functional wine care in wine by the glass operations.
Following up on my own piece on Kevin Kelley’s the NPA, I read that everything old is new again, and that wine is being pushed through hoses by inert gas, like beer, from kegs; and serious quality restaurant wines are available at greatly reduced cost through elimination of expensive packaging, and being maintained for months in ideal conditions for wine by the glass programs.
I wish you success with whatever solution suits your circumstances.
Thanks again for reading, sharing, and commenting.
John
November 17, 2010 at 3:36 AM
I have to say there are few points I disagree with in this article and the tests.
First….
…and foremost the comments about the vacuvin losing pressure after a short period of time seem totally off-the-mark. I’m a winemaker and have been using vacuvins for some time. The comment that after 12 hours it has totally lost it’s vacuum is simply not accurate in our experience. We find stoppers are holding their seal and the pressure completely. Even after 7 days the pressure remains intact.
Perhaps the reason for this is that we also will use the vacuvin and then immediately put bottles in the fridge. The decrease in temperature and stable temperature is likely to create a further vacuum.
Secondly….
In our taste trials, we find that the vacuvin sample bottles stored in a refridgerator outperform the cork by about 24-48 hours. It’s not a huge difference and that bottle of St. Emilion isn’t going to last days, but 24 hours later it’s going to look better than without the vacuvin and just a cork (in our experience).
Thirdly…
The comment about the vacuvin “sucking” away aroma and degrading the wine is a serious stretch. A simple vacuum is not going to remove all the fruity esters from a wine. Theoretically, yes, some are being removed, but it would be below sensory threshold. Temperature and oxygen are what’s going to have the greatest impact on the aroma profile. Not a vacuum.
Finally…
You are dead right….the vacuvin is not perfect and inert gas cover is the best possible solution. HOWEVER, our chemistry friend above has raised completely legitimate points about the displacement of oxygen via a mixed nitrogen/argon inert gas. The only successful method you are going to have is to use pure argon and you would have to flood it at a slow flow rate so that the heavy argon ‘floats’ the air out of the bottle. This is, however, pretty impractical in the home or restaurant. However, visit any winery and you’ll find a commercial size bottle of argon on site that is being used to gas and protect wines in tank, barrels, bottles etc… If you flood enough argon to displace the air, the heavy argon forms a blanket over the wine and will prevent oxidation issues.
I like the idea of the argon in a can for the private consumer, but my guess is you would have to go through a whole lot of that stuff to get some good effect out of it and it’s probably expensive.
However, I’m sure that it would work better if it was pure argon and it certainly will be better than just placing the cork back in the bottle.
Honestly….the cold temperature of your fridge is often your best friend to keep that bottle alive (red wine or white). Cool the temp and you slow the reactions down.
November 17, 2010 at 10:56 AM
Dear winemaker,
I almost did not post your missive, because you don’y identify yourself or your winery, but use a psuedonym, winemaker. Although you call yourself a winemaker, I think you are quite possibly a shill for vacuvin.
The vacuum fail rate was measured by a science professor in a science lab at a university and reported by Wine Spectator’s Matt Kramer. Kramer reports just enough vacuum left to make a “hiss”ing sound allowing people to fool themselves, but a complete loss of efficacy.
I saw that you have reviewed a couple of wines on Cellar Tracker. Kramer has tasted tens of thousands of wines in his various wine roles, and reports serious deterioration of wine flavors for wines that were sealed with a vacuvin, as tasted by himself and sommeliers.
You state, unequivocally, that the vacuvin stoppers hold their seal and pressure completely. What scientific method did you use to measure this “complete”ness? I ask, as your experience runs counter to the experience of professionals who found near complete failure when measuring the seal and pressure hold in two different science labs, one in the Pacific Northwest, Oregon or Washington, and one in Napa.
I imagine that most of the benefit you claim owes to the refrigeration, as you note, and almost none to the vacuvin – which most critical tasters find no better than the old cork.
Often, expectation colors perception. I suspect that this is the reason the vacuvin did well for you in your taste trials. Kramer’s taste trials were performed blind, and the worst tasting wine, the wine with ester ruination, was the one sealed with a vacuvin, bottle after bottle. I believe the only reason most vacuvin owners are happy with the product is that deceptive hiss, and expectation of efficacy, a lack of critical tasting, and no controlled blind tastings. I have had hundreds of people attest to the vacuvin’s failure when tasting critically, after I shared Kramer’s article in large show gatherings where I spoke, upon my return. I always urge blind tasting.
As the vacuum strips away some of the more volatile esters, but doesn’t create a complete vacuum, then allows nearly all, or all, of a regular oxygen laden air mix back into the bottle, it fared worse than just putting the regular cork back in for many tasting room managers I spoke with when I visited hundreds of California tasting rooms when I worked with the Wine Appreciation Guild. At home, with 6 glasses in a bottle, the pump strips the notes five times, as it is used between glasses. Worse, for tasting rooms with 1 ounce tasting sample pours, there are 24 sucks between the 25 ounces in the bottle.
I find it amazing that people buy for home use something that fails so profoundly in a professional environment.
Except at the winery where you are the winemaker. Where was that again? I’m sure people will want to line up to taste your wines held onto 2 days longer than you used to when previously sealed with a cork. I’ll be honest, I don’t want to be in that line. I don’t want to taste the 25th pour from a bottle held for days longer than it used to be held, if you are stripping away esters 24 times before I taste it, and if you stubbornly claim a complete seal and pressure hold in the face of scientific evidence to the contrary. I think you are giving your customers less than the best; but of course it is your wine, and you are free to serve it in whatever condition you deem acceptable. But I think you should identify yourself and your winery so consumers are making informed tasting decisions.
Oil and vinegar separate, oil and water separate. The heavier liquid sinks to the bottom of a container, and the lighter liquid floats on top. Argon works the same way in a wine bottle. The heavier liquid does not need to be slowly introduced into the container, it can be poured right in and the liquids will find their levels. The Argon is not intended, nor required, to displace all of the oxygen, and contrary to your erroneous assertion, does not need to be introduced slowly. Argon, heavier than Oxygen, blankets wine from Oxygen, as the two elemental gasses similarly seek and find their own levels. While the science friend you refer to has a pint, it is not a cogent point. Many cans of Private Preserve hold enough gas to provide an adequate blanket to 120 bottles of wine, 5 times per bottle, so you are protecting 600 glasses of wine for about $10 retail. To maintain the argon in the bottle against shaking, the bottle is corked.
Many wineries use the gas in a can in their tasting rooms because, contrary to your guess, very little is needed, a blast of a few seconds followed by recorking, to effect preservation, and with wholesale costs the per use cost is just 3/4 of one cent for an effective seal. The per use cost at home runs one and two thirds cent per use at retail cost.
All this is largely academic. Most people jam the old cork back in, or use a decorative stopper, and put the bottle in the fridge for their whites, and the refrigeration does more for holding the wines longer than the cork, or stopper, or leaky valved gray plastic plug. Most people, at home, will serve their wine straight from the refrigerator, about 20 degrees to cold, close to freezing, with few of the wonderful notes the winemaker was so proud of showing. Some folks will put their reds in the refrigerator too, and while maintained longer, it is less than optimal for enjoyment when poured at a temperature just above freezing. Rarely, do you see someone warming their wine in the glass in their hands for 15 minutes or so.
I put my whites upright in the refrigerator after a blast of Private Preserve, and sealed with a Corker decorative bottle stopper. My reds get a blast of Argon mix gas, and a Corker stopper, and sit upright on my counter. I save space, and my wines are well maintained. As I typically take longer to finish whites, the beneficial effects of refrigeration are a nice, although likely unnecessary, backstop method providing peace of mind.
If someone jams the cork back in and near freezes their reds, or drinks the whole bottle every time, they are going to keep on doing what they are doing. I know that my writing isn’t going to change the wine world, but this article has thousands of reads, and maybe I will save a few people from throwing their money away on a product that doesn’t do a very good job, in my opinion, in the opinion of many professionals, and as evidenced by verifiable reproducible scientific measure of the product’s failure.
I welcome various points of view. Until and unless you identify yourself and the winery you make wine for, I’ll assume your point of view represents that of the producers of vacuvin.
November 18, 2010 at 3:05 AM
I’m a winemaker and have absolutely no vested interest in vacuvin’s business whatsoever.
Why do I post anonymously?
If publish my name, you could google me and find which winery I work for in about 30 seconds. We have been told that we must not post publicly under our names on internet forums as my comments, while they might be my own, may be come attributed to the winery/brand for whom I work. It sucks, but brand protection is taken very seriously by the marketing people and management. I don’t really want to lose my job, just because I had some idle curiosity and desire to share my viewpoints.
I’m also taken aback by your comments and accusations (I believe those comments are exactly why we were lectured by our marketing people about the risks of posting on public forums).
In answer to your query…
We don’t run a cellar door and we aren’t using vacuvins for our customers. Period. When we do private tours, they are for barrel tastings or fresh bottles only are decanted and served.
Our trials were conducted blind and our winemaking staff has postgraduate degrees in chemistry, mircobiology and oenology. We don’t do anything by chance. The only reason we conducted a trial on vacuvins was for own personal use and curiosity. Nothing more or less.
Regarding vacuum pressure….
We do not have highly precise instrumentation designed to measure the pressure loss of the vacuvin, but the comment that it loses all of it’s pressure in 12 hours was absolutely not the case in our trial and current use. HOWEVER, I should point out that we also use the older style vacuvin stoppers which I believe work better, so that might be part of the reason as well for the claims of failure. I will be the first to admit that I *LOATHE* the newer style stopper with the “click” option and I even wrote to vacuvin complaining when they changed the stopper design. The older style stopper provided a superior seal as it had flanges along the neck and did not solely rely on the seal occurring on the crown of the bottle. That being said, I still have not seen consistent and complete failure of the vacuvin stoppers as was suggested by the research that you quote from Kramer.
That being said, when vacuvin changed the stopper style, I bought out the remaining stocks of the original stopper and that’s what we use primarily.
Regarding the esters…
I will agree with your comment that if the vacuvin seal is failing and being resuctioned 24 times, you are going to see the wines fall over very quickly and that will increase degradation and loss of volatile esters. I still find the suggestion that a vacuum is actually removing the fruity esters to be a dubious conclusion. I think it is much more likely that you are seeing a high turn over of air/oxygen within the bottle under the scenario where the vacuvin seal is failing after a few hours.
Regarding the gas separation…
It just doesn’t perform as well as you might think. We have to address issues of gas blanketing fermentation vessels during cold maceration, extended maceration, or temporary holding during blending/assemblage. Time and again we have found that anything less than a complete flooding with argon and/or nitrogen is not effective. Relying on the argon’s weight alone does not prove reliable enough to meet our rigorous standards. I will grant that this problem will be exacerbated by the large volumes/vessels. And as such, I did agree with you that inert gas cover was a superior option in GENERAL and if practical and affordable.
Finally…
I have read hundreds of studies, trials and journal articles and tasted with top wine writers around the world. Just because it was performed by a scientist in a lab, reported by a wine writer, or commented on by a sommelier doesn’t mean the results they report are infallible or 100% accurate. Scientists and wine writers make mistakes or draw false conclusions all the time.
Regards,
A anonymous winemaker..Sorry..it’s gotta be that way!
p.s. Also, I have no association with whomever reviewed wines on Cellar Tracker. That must be someone else.
November 18, 2010 at 6:53 AM
I completely understand the position that prevents you from posting under your own name, and in spite of my odd seeming request to reveal your identity, I welcome your comments and all points of view, even when in discord with my own.
The anecdotal nature of your shared observations echoed the folks from vacuvin, given in response to my request for refutation of Kramer’s assertions, when I met with them in 2001. In the intervening years, I sought but did not receive empirical refutation to counter the scientific measurements of vacuum achieved (never complete) and leak rate (always substantial).
I find it remarkable than any writing of mine finds readership, I just do what I do; but this is one of those pieces with thousands of reads, and new readers every single day. Remarkable? More like shockingly weird.
I apologize for suggesting that you might be a shill for the product. Having met the company’s representatives, I expect it.
Congratulations on caring about your wines enough to seek efficacious preservation methods. We share the journey, if not the same destination.
The cellar tracker reviews were found using a google search of divedog and winemaker, obviously nowhere near as unique a pair of phrases as I imagined.
Cheers,
John
November 27, 2010 at 2:00 PM
Refrigerating is certainly a good option, as it will significantly slow down the oxidation — generally speaking, every 10 ˚C (18 ˚F) the temperature decreases will slow the oxidation reaction by half, so going from room temperature to refrigerator temperature could slow the reaction to 1/4 (giving 4x more time to store the wine before it begins to taste oxidized).
I’m speculating that it might be a good idea to first refrigerate the bottle and once it’s cold use the Vacu Vin to seal it. It would still be pretty easy to remove the gasses (oxygen won’t even begin to condense at refrigerator temperatures), but the volatile phenols/esters/etc would be much harder to remove at cooler temperatures.
As for the volitiles, I do suspect some may be lost to the vacuum. I’m not sure how much, or how many, and I don’t know what’s really enough to even notice a difference. I notice a difference in taste after pulling a vacuum on a bottle a few times, especially over the course of a day or more. Volatiles could slowly escape under vacuum into the bottle’s headspace and into the air once the bottle’s reopened.
Looking at some reported volatiles (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0021-9673(01)00972-4), it’s debatable. Acetaldehyde boils at just 68 °F, diacetyl boils at 190 ˚F (132 ˚F calculated at 75% vacuum), 3-hydroxy butanone boils at 298 ˚F (222 ˚F calculated at 75% vacuum). Though any chemist will tell you that boiling point isn’t the best indicator; camphor has a strong smell as a solid, suggesting a good deal is being released into the air, but has a fairly high boiling point. Vapor pressure’s the culprit; if you can smell it, it’s volatile, more so under vacuum. However, it would take a lot more work to quantify how much is actually being lost and would require an exact pressure for the Vacu Vin at its best — I’m skeptical of the 70% value given since I don’t know how the test was run (even if all of the air were removed, the wine would have a vapor pressure of its own). I doubt even a strong vacuum could remove all or most of the volatiles, but it seems likely that some may be lost.
If the vacuum’s poor, it won’t remove all of the oxygen. If it’s good, it will remove more of the volatiles. Either way, the Vacu Vin’s not a perfect solution, but all wine preservation systems are stopgap measures; there will always be some depreciation in quality once the bottle’s been opened, and most wine drinkers won’t notice the difference. We can debate theory all day, but at some point each wine drinker has to just try it and see how it tastes. Regardless of what the experts say, in the end, I think it all depends on what tastes “good enough” to the individual.
November 23, 2010 at 4:19 PM
Dear Jayson,
I am writing to follow up on your reproduction of the marshmallow experiment. As a do-it-yourself mythbuster; do you find the assertion of wine spectator, wall street journal, consumer reports, University science labs, and a Napa testing facilty that the Vacu-vin is a schuck, due to failure to create a complete vacuum or maintain the partial vacuum, as reported by me, to be accurate, plausible or busted.
How did your marshmallow experiment fare? What brand and model vacuum product did you test?
Thanks again for finding my site and sharing your thoughts in a well written comment.
Note: I originally e-mailed this note to Jayson on May 16, 2010 at 12:23PM
November 23, 2010 at 10:43 AM
Note: I received the following comment by email today, November 23, 2010 at 10:43 am. I am posting it here as Jayson was referenced by our winemaker vacuvin devotee. I am grateful for the continued thoughtfulness of Jayson, the chemist, who debunked the vacuvin’s efficacy on his own. I have entered Jayson’s contact info, but my picture attaches as I am posting Jayson’s email. Chhers!
Hi John,
Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I sorted your e-mail into one of my “To Do” folders and managed to forget about it.
I did give your experiment a try; I placed a marshmallow in a wine bottle, pulled a vacuum and waited. Within about a half hour, the marshmallow had reduced in size slightly, but it remained that size for two days before I vented the bottle. Without running more analytical experiments (it’s hard to say how much the size of the marshmallow changed just by eye) I can’t say for sure how effective it is at pulling a vacuum, but it certainly looks like it doesn’t hold a strong vacuum for more than a short time. I would say that it does maintain the partial vacuum though, so it’s probably effective at keeping a good amount of oxygen out, but it certainly can’t be keeping all (or maybe even most) of it out. Of course there will always be some dissolved in the liquid that no technique can fully remove, so the best practice would be to finish the bottle as soon as possible after opening, but I’d say that the Vacu Vin (I have the standard model, http://www.amazon.com/Vacu-Vin-3-Piece-Saver-Stopper/dp/B00004SAF4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1290531470&sr=8-2, purchased about 2 years ago) is only a modest solution at best.
For the price, I still think it’s better than just re-corking when keeping for more than a day, and would work well for lower-grade “cooking” wines. I certainly do agree with your assertion that pulling a vacuum removes the aroma (the volatiles) of the wine, and now that I’ve paid more attention to the taste I can definitely notice the difference — if I plan to drink the rest of the bottle in a day or less I’ve abandoned the Vacu Vin and just gone with re-corking.
I like your explanation about the argon/nitrogen systems; that does make sense to me. Argon is more dense than air, so once the gasses settle, the oxygen will remain with the nitrogen on top of the argon. Provided you don’t jostle the bottle real much I would think it would do a great job to protect the wine from oxidation. The membranes also sound like a good idea. The only benefit to the Vacu Vin above these is that it’s a one-time investment, but for someone who really has a good taste for wine (and willing to spend a little bit more $), I’d concur that it’s not a good solution.
I recently got started home-brewing beer, and eventually would like to try wine as well. I’ll probably look into one of these other options then. Keep up the blogging, I enjoy reading the site!
~Jayson
April 7, 2011 at 10:42 PM
John,
I’m a satisfied Vacu Vin user, and I can tell you without a doubt that it works.
The link to your first reference is dead. In any case, the site that formerly hosted this document is a competing wine preservation solution.
Your second link is to a Wine Spectator article. Have you seen Wine Spectator’s newer article? http://www.winespectator.com/magazine/show/id/10632
Your third reference is a Consumer Reports article in which none of the wines spoiled. And yet, wine does spoil if it is not properly preserved. Since Consumer Reports observed no spoilage in their experiment, I wouldn’t conclude that the VacuVin failed… I would conclude that the experiment failed. You can’t measure the effectiveness of a wine preservation system if you don’t observe (and therefore measure the ability to prevent) spoilage. Perhaps they need to redesign their experiment (wait longer before tasting).
Your hypothesis is that oxygen “reacts” with wine to spoil it. This is a false premise. If it were true, you should be able to explain what oxygen is reacting with (give the chemical equation for the reaction).
Oxygen allows bacteria to grow, and bacteria spoil wine. Note that bacteria won’t grow “in” the wine, due to the alcohol content.. but they can grow on top of the wine in the bottle and on the surface.
I can assure you that my Vacu Vin holds a strong vacuum for weeks. I’m not sure what the problem was with the particular model that was tested, but you can clearly hear a great quantity of air entering the bottle when you open it – even after several weeks. This is the same sound that you would hear if you opened it after several minutes. I realize that this is not a scientific measurement (I’m an engineer who has managed operations with a number of different vacuum chambers). However, I’m confident that it works – pulling and holding a strong vacuum.
Bacteria can’t survive and grow in a vacuum… even a partial vacuum. If you pull out 75% of the air in the bottle you have the equivalent of very high altitude remaining in the bottle. What happens to any bacteria when the air pressure drops from 14 pounds per square inch to 3 in about 10 seconds? Their cells expand and they explode. Can you survive at 40,000 feet without supplemental oxygen? No. Neither can bacteria.
As for the more volatile components evaporating – what are they, and where would they go? They are still in the bottle, and they would condense when the pressure is restored.
Please don’t believe that a “marshmallow test” can measure the level of vacuum. Marshmallows are elastic. While they trap air, what happens when you pull a vacuum above them? They expand… but then the air finds its way out, reducing the vacuum and allowing the marshmallows to shrink again. Observe the marshmallow and the vacuum gauge in this video… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdT5RCLJTiU
My Vacu Vin has been working great for 20 years, and I can keep wine fresh for weeks. I’ve never had a bottle spoil when preserved with the Vacu Vin, nor have I ever detected a negative effect. I’m not a wine professional, but I have an excellent sense of smell and taste. I would recommend that you try the Vacu Vin. Experience would show you that it really works.
Tom
April 8, 2011 at 9:24 AM
Tom,
I am thrilled that you enjoy your Vacu-Vin.
I have read the 2004 Wine Spectator piece, it was devoid of scientific measurement and as such dismissible as just so much fluff filler content, possibly inspired by advertisement revenue. The earlier piece by Matt Kramer saw the vacu-vin fail both in a University laboratory and in subsequent blind tastings. The vacuum was only partial, and was not held. Only enough differential upon reopening later to make a hissing sound fooling owners into thinking they were doing something, but not enough to save the wine.
I have visited hundreds of tasting rooms, I manage one, and I don’t know of any that rely on the vacu-vin. The oxidative reaction is not deterred by the leaking partial vacuum created by the vacu-vin, and the volatile esters and phenols are stripped from repeated pumping. As I pointed out, serious professionals use inert, heavier than oxygen gasses to both displace, and more importantly, blanket the wine from the oxygen.
The experience of thousands of industry professionals carries, for me, more weight than millions of uninvolved hobbyists.
You dismiss the findings of an independent wine laboratory in Napa because it contradicts your notions of efficacy, ignoring scientific measurement because it was used afterward by someone with a superior wine saving system. This seems to me to be a bit of flat earther logic, ignoring new observations, experiences, measurable and demonstrable facts in favor of long held mistaken beliefs.
Mind you, this is the second laboratory that measured the device’s leak rate, confirming Kramer’s assertion that the device was a failure.
I have tried the vacu-vin. I can state without reservation, that it does not “save” the wine quality. Can people who are not critical tasters enjoy vacu-vin pumped wine? Sure; but the uncritical would likely enjoy wine two weeks old sealed with the old cork, so that is of little value.
I have always looked for long term storage, so I could enjoy single glasses from different bottles over time.
I am not as convinced that the inert gasses, nitrogen or nitrogen argon mix, are as efficacious as I once believed. With many bottles available to me professionally I will be experimenting further.
My experience, shared by most industry professionals, is that gas is better than pumping, and we pour gassed wines after three days, because we are tasting critically. We are not looking for merely a good wine, still drinkable; we want our tasters to experience the wine as if just opened, and the vacu-vin does not meet our professional needs, although I am glad they meet your personal ones.
I always disliked hearing from others that the best solution is to finish the bottle, but for professionals that seems to be the best answer.
Still, glad you are an ardently happy defender of orthodoxy, even in the face of repeated laboratory measured failure and industry wide (although not monolithic or absolute) scorn for the product.
Cheers.
John
April 8, 2011 at 10:15 AM
Thanks for your response John.
Your article attempts to “debunk a claim”. In your article you reach several conclusions.
1 – that the Vacu Vin is ineffective.
(you try to debunk the claim.. but then you go on to make additional claims)
2 – that the Vacu Vin is harmful to wine. 3 – that gas preservation is effective and harmless to the wine.
I don’t argue with the 3rd point. I agree that replacing the air in the bottle with an inert gas will preserve the wine. This is because most bacteria need oxygen to survive (there are anaerobic bacteria, but these are unlikely to enter the bottle, or find a place to grow, due to the alcohol).
So, we both agree that gas preservation systems can be effective… when used properly. But they are certainly more difficult to use and more expensive.
You make a couple of claims in your article. You (and others) hypothesize that there is an (as yet undescribed) “oxidative reaction” that will take place in a Vacu Vin sealed bottle. You also hypothesize that the vacuum created causes harm by allowing certain components in the wine to evaporate. And yet, I haven’t seen a single study or unbiased article that provides any evidence of this. In fact, the Consumer Reports article showed that in double-blind testing by experts, they couldn’t tell the difference in taste after several days. So, not only did none of the wines spoil (meaning that the efficacy of wine preservation couldn’t be observed), but no difference was observed. This seems to prove the opposite of your hypothesis.
I know from experience that the Vacu Vin works. I think that I know how it works… the vacuum (even if it isn’t a perfect vacuum, and even if the strongest vacuum reading is temporary) has the effect of sterilizing the bottle by killing any bacteria that may have entered when you poured the first glass(es) of wine and air entered the bottle.
By the way, when you pull a vacuum above a liquid, some of the liquid will evaporate until an equilibrium is obtained. It’s very hard to achieve a good vacuum when water is present. Proving that the vacuum is reduced over time does not prove that the Vacu Vin is ineffective. It not only misrepresents how the Vacu Vin works, it shows a lack of understanding of basic chemistry.
I would be interested to read any reliable data that shows that the Vacu Vin is harmful to wine. Like the Consumer Reports experts, I haven’t observed this at all. I would be interested in reading any study that showed wine spoiling when properly sealed with a Vacu Vin. I have never observed this. I used to regularly observe wine spoiling when I simply recorked the bottle, even when refrigerated.
Cheers,
Tom
April 8, 2011 at 7:06 PM
You state that liquid evaporates when a vacuum is pulled above it, yet discount the harm that comes when that same vacuum pulls the volatile esters and phenols from the wine. It doesn’t seem possible to have one without the other. Kramer described a lack of pungency when sniffing and tasting vacuumed wines for wine Spectator.
I may be wrong, but I seem to remember the Consumer Reports experts being wine drinkers, but not certified trained and tested wine experts.
You also seem to confuse oxidation with spoilage from microbial bacteria. They are different harms that come to wine. Often wines are spoiled before opened due to Brett or TCA, while oxidation of well stored bottles typically occurs after opening.
Here is a link to a little more info on the subject, this was only the first of many results that I pulled up with a quick Google search. It speaks to winemaking, but the same principles apply to bottles. http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Wine/Resources/wineaerationanditsadverseeffects.htm
You say that none of the wines spoiled in the Consumer Reports tasting when vacuumed. I should hope not. Wines typically do not spoil after opening. Alcohol inhibits such spoilage. It is possible that spoilage is further inhibited by vacuuming, and I will accept your hypothesis untested.
What I say is that partial, leaking vacuums do not prevent against oxidation. Come to our wine country, you won’t find winemakers embracing oxidation, they see it as wine’s enemy. The vacu-vin does not seem to effectively, as measured in at least two different laboratories, battle this true threat to wine, and again as pointed out in at least two different articles (Kramerin W.S. and another linked below), causes wine to lose subtle top notes and flavors.
Tom Kramer reported in Wine Spectator after blind tastings by Sommeliers and measuring vacuum (partial) and leak rate (substantial) that the vacu-vin harmed the wines it was used on. You may consider this respected professional wine taster, wine book author, and wine consultant to be a liar, or erratic and unreliable, and thereby discount the science behind the assertions and the value of his observations in his report. I accepted it, because it mirrored the experiences of many wine industry professionals that I worked with.
Here’s another article saying vacuums can be used, but are detrimental to the wine’s flavor: http://www.tasting-wine.com/articles/common-wine-problems/wine-solutions.php “Vacuuming: this method requires the use of a vacuum device that will suck the oxygen out of the bottle. A vacuum device can be as simple as a rubber bung and a pump. This method, however, seems to render the wine dull and lifeless in flavor.”
You are not alone in loving your vacu-vin. Kramer published a survey result, before publishing his “Giant Sucking Sound…And That’s All” article about the vacu-vin’s near complete failure, where wine drinkers who owned a vacu-vin had nearly 100% customer satisfaction. Subsequently, satisfaction plummeted when informed tasters turned a critical eye – or nose and mouth – to their vacu-vin. I think, as Kramer alluded to, that assuming the product was beneficial, wouldn’t be sold if it was a shuck, consumers tasted uncritically and were happy, because in their mind they were secure, thinking they were doing good.
That said, your mileage may vary, I could be wrong. Kramer could be wrong. Laboratories in different states could be wrong. Wine writers could be wrong. Wine professionals could be wrong. The wine industry could be wrong. Maybe the vacu-vin is the best solution to saving unfinished bottles of wine on the market. I’ve been wrong before, many many times.
I may not be a scientist, able to explain how the oxidative reaction is ultimately harmful to wine. Some is good, allowing wines to open; yet more is bad as fruit notes are lost. The description of an oxidized wine in this NYMag piece http://nymag.com/restaurants/articles/wine/essentials/badwine.htm is nearly the same description used in the article linked above to describe a vacuumed bottle.
I abhor anecdotal “evidence,” I don’t like pointing out that nearly everyone in the wine industry avoids the vacu-vin, we could all be wrong. I don’t like pointing at the laboratory results, you don’t accept them. I don’t like pointing to the tastings done by trained professionals, you counter with Consumer reports untrained or tested experts.
Our experiences differ. Completely. At least with respect to our faith in a valved stopper. The good news is we both love wine, and care about it enough to seek solutions to what honestly isn’t the biggest crisis facing mankind.
I am thrilled to post opinions different than mine, I welcome your contribution and am grateful for it. You provide a vibrant counterpoint to my original article. I wrote this piece a long time ago, and am amazed at how many people find it each day, and the passions it inflames.
Keep well, and again thanks.
John
April 28, 2011 at 7:47 PM
Thanks John, good read.
I too have purchased a Vacu Vin and have had so so results. Cnet.com had an article this month under their “gadgets” section about a thing called a Wine Balloon. So for a few bucks I ordered one as the idea is similar to the floating disk. The balloon sealed the bottle for three days. When I went back for a glass I still tasted subtleties of the wine with no apparent residual effect from the balloon, it worked pretty well. Was wondering if you’ve heard or tried it?
April 28, 2011 at 9:41 PM
Funny Martin, but I have always thought that a balloon was the ideal wine preservation concept, but was concerned that a chemical, rubber, or plastic aroma or flavor might be imparted to the wine. It is interesting to see that someone is using the idea to seeming good effect. Thanks for sharing the news. -John
January 28, 2012 at 4:03 PM
[...] All this in response to a piece I wrote back in 2009. [...]
February 12, 2012 at 7:06 PM
[...] his Wine Balloon from TVs Sharks. Back in April, last year, Martin left a comment to my “Friends don’t let friends Vacu-Vin” piece: Thanks John, good [...]
March 27, 2012 at 1:49 PM
Regarding your claim about wine being outright damaged by a vacuum. I believe your opinion on this matter is at odds with the whole concept of the partial pressure of gases. To first-order, volatile components of wine would be acting within the constraints of Dalton’s Law of Partial Pressures. To put it another way, the vacuum or lack thereof has NO INFLUENCE on the equilibrium pressure of the volatile components of your wine. You cannot “suck” these components out anymore than you can “push” them in by *increasing* the air pressure. The volatile components will evaporate until they reach equilibrium with the liquid, regardless of what other gases are in the bottle.
Dalton’s law is taught to all undergraduate physicists, especially meteorologists. When people say, “Warm holds more moisture,” they are wrong. You could remove ALL of the nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere and the equilibrium vapor pressure of water vapor would still depend on the temperature, not how many other gases there are. That is – you would still have the same amount of water “held” by the “air”. Similarly, your volatile wine components will reach the same pressure regardless of air pressure. One *minor* caveat is that more “volume” will be available for the volatiles to fill if there is a vacuum, but the ratio of gas density to liquid density is so large, that will have little effect on the amount of volatile components remaining in the wine.
Now, regarding the amount of O2 available for spoilage or bacteria, that is a different issue and I don’t necessarily disagree that the device has an impact.
One more thing – another post mentioned that one reason the vacuum could deteriorate is that the liquid in a bottle could evaporate and contribute to the increase in pressure over time. At the temperatures involved, the effect is negligible. The only way your wine bottle will return to ambient pressure is if there is a leak. (Even in a warm environment (75 degrees F), water vapor pressure would be able to contribute only 30 millibars, whereas atmospheric pressure at sea level is one THOUSAND millibars. Of course, water vapor would be your only source of concern, as it is by far the biggest component of wine.)
July 22, 2012 at 12:51 PM
I just stumbled on your thread because I have lost my Vacuvin rubber stopper somehow. I use it sometimes but now always. The Vacuvin was a gift from my sister, who uses a similar air pump for keeping wine overnight. Fascinating. Now I don’t feel like I am ruining wine by leaving it corked in the fridge. Thank you for this bit of myth busting.
December 1, 2012 at 4:50 PM
Interesting discussion. I’m just a wine consumer but I have two thoughts/comments:
1) I’m interested in the wine shields that float, but how do they affect recycling of the bottles? I like to recycle, so would like to know if leaving the piece of plastic in the bottle will be a problem for our recycling plants. Can the plastic piece be washed out of the bottle?
2) Way back at the top, I read about pouring some wine in a glass and swirling and sniffing until it was deemed properly aerated, and then corking the bottle. But the small amount of wine in the glass combined with swirling, surely would put more oxygen into the wine in the glass that the wine left in the bottle, wouldn’t they?
December 1, 2012 at 7:14 PM
Hi Nancy,
1) The wine shields are recyclable and can be left in a bottle that goes to a murf site – multi use recycling facility.
2) I wasn’t as clear as I should have been. When opening a bottle for dinner that I am confident will be finished, I open it, pour a glass, swirl, let it open, and when the alcohol blast dissipates and the fruit comes forward – when the wine is nice, I put the cork in the bottle knowing that, minus the swirling the glass got, the wine in the bottle with the increased oxygen will likely result in yummy glasses through the dinner…better than a freshly opened wine bottle.
If I don’t finish the bottle, or if I finish it with the help of friends but open another bottle that doesn’t get finished, then I hit that bottle with Argon.
In the time between writing the original post and now, I found a great consumer bottle of Argon for home wine preservation: http://www.vineyardfresh.com/
At work, I have a big tank of pure Argon. I love it, it works better than any other wine preservation option I have experimented with.
December 3, 2012 at 10:28 AM
John,
Thanks for the latest comments on wine preservation. You may be pleased to know that as promised, last March I performed a vacu-vin jury evaluation of both a red and white wines opened weekly for a period of 6 weeks and sealed with the vacu-vin stopper. So, we had wines having been opened for 1 wk. 2.wks. 3wks. … etc. 6wks. and we evaluated the wines compared to freshly opened bottles. I haven’t put together a report yet but some conclusions about the test were evident. Deterioration of the wines was evident in all bottles regardless of the no. of weeks opened or whether the wines were sealed under vacuum or not. Past one week opened, all wines exhibited significant deterioration of taste quality, but there was little distinction in quality past the 2 week point. Vacu-vin wines could not be accurately detected. What was evident was that there was no discernable oxidation of the oldest wines whether vacu-vined or not. All wines were refrigerated during the course of storage prior to the test evaluation.
After this experience I have come up with an hypothesis concerning the attempt to prevent the deterioration of wine once a bottle is opened. My hypothesis is this: the predominant deterioration of wine cause, once a wine is opened, is not primarily due to the presence of oxygen but rather release of volatile taste components to the space above the wine regardless whether it is a vacuum or some other gas which eliminates the presence of oxygen. This conclusion is based in the high degree of vacuum that was achieved as part of the test preparation and the fact that there was no apparent loss of vacuum in the stored bottles even after 6 weeks. I have not performed any test of wines stored with either nitrogen or argon or other gas above the wine and was wondering if you know of such a test or have performed such a test yourself.
December 3, 2012 at 10:37 AM
Thanks Robert.
I haven’t conducted a blind taste test of wines stored under Argon, but I use it daily in a professional environment and tasting critically can say that this is the most efficacious wine preservation method I have tried…by a wide margin.
Nitrogen doesn’t really do much, it isn’t heavier than oxygen, just sort of mixes with it, and doesn’t protect wine very well, at least when compared with Argon.
Most commercially available wine preservation gasses are a mix of the two, but I would recommend searching out 100% Argon, it is available and it is what I use exclusively.
Cheers, and thanks for your work.
December 12, 2012 at 7:00 PM
John,
How do you feel about aerators? Can you recommend one? (Cancelled the Vacu Vins and looking for a different gift? :0)
Deb
December 12, 2012 at 10:46 PM
I have seen young wines, and overly tannic wines, opened up and improved with the use of a Vinturi wine aerator. It made freshly opened, tight, bottles instantly drinkable without the ordinary time involved in letting a wine breathe. Not ideal for every wine, they rock for many big reds.
I haven’t tried a bunch of different aerators, just the Vinturi and was impressed enough that I didn’t try another.
Great gift!
December 15, 2012 at 12:15 PM
Hi John,
What about the “sowine” device, that electrically draws a vacuum and maintains it and also refrigerates the wine while in storage? Have you tried out one of these?
Ian
December 15, 2012 at 1:40 PM
I’ve seen them but at this point would avoid any device that purports to create a vacuum as it will also likely strip the wine to some degree of volatile esters and phenols and is unlikely to actually protect wine much better or worse than just the old cork – from what I’ve read.
Argon, finish, or waste.
December 18, 2012 at 5:22 PM
as a former chemist, did you wet the stopper with water, very importantly including the slit in the top which holds the seal? This is key to an effective vacuum. By squeezing the stopper a bit, the slit opens, and put a bit of water in then. I would be interested to see what the vacuum over time results would be. Sign me an interested friend of wine and its wellbeing.
January 30, 2013 at 4:37 AM
Hi,
great article. Besides wine I also enjoy whisk(e)y quite a bit. Thing is, even more than with wine bottles, Whisky bottles are not emptied straight away. Since multiple usage corks are used (seating in not as tight as with wine bottles), the bottle breathes quite a bit, especially once opened.
I am unsure to what degree the whole process it comparable to wine since Whisky does not mature any further in the bottle. But Whisky does lose alcohol and becomes more and more bland over the course of time, especially at lower filling levels.
I have read quite a few statements in whisky forums, that vacuvin works with whisky, whilst same people also acknowledged the uselessness of it with wine.
What is your take on this? How would something like an adapted Wine Shild perform? Unfortunately due to the varying sizes of Whisky bottles, the wine ones are rather useless.
Cheers,
Patrick
January 30, 2013 at 11:01 AM
Thanks for the comment Patrick. I would imagine that Whisk(e)y’s alcohol loss is analogous to the loss of flavor in wine after opened. I have used a recorker with much denser cork than ordinary on wines, oils, vinegars, and alcohol for years. I didn’t hit it real hard because I sold the things around the country and it sounded to commercial in this post…not impartial enough.
One of my favorite solutions I’ve heard is to add dishwasher safe glass marbles to the liquid in a bottle, raising the fill to the very top of the bottle and then use the recorker. A bit labor intensive but 100% efficacy.
Thanks again for reading. Cheers!
March 23, 2013 at 1:43 PM
Thank you for your time John. I’m glad my fiancé found your blog when searching for the “right” wine pump that I asked for my birthday. Wow, I can’t believe those items are still on the market…actually I can, and it’s sad that companies get away with it. I’m glad we can now spend the money on wine instead and it will be my pleasure to share your blog with family and friends. Santé! Maddy
May 2, 2013 at 11:02 AM
John …Love this thread… two things… the old style of vacu vin stoppers worked incredibly well…. marshmallows stayed in place well over 4 days…. new ones didn’t last two hours.. I have no idea why they changed them to something that so obviously doesn’t work… anyway they did…. the next comment I have is a question. I watched a show on The Dragons Den and they had a guy on there with an amazing system… it was a long elongated balloon that fit inside the bottle was blown up. And completely sealed the wine off from the oxygen. Now I imagine it would have to be made of surgical rubber or silicon or something not to transfer the rubber taste but I thought it was a brilliant idea… So did the dragons as he did sell his idea… that was it though. I have not been able to find any sign of this product…have you seen this yet?
May 2, 2013 at 6:04 PM
I know that the Your Dragon’s Den is known as the Shark Tank here. We did have someone appear here with the same product you are speaking of. He got an investor, but then seemed to have backed out of the deal, retaining all control of his company while enjoying some visibility. Each time the episode repeats, I see an increase in traffic, as I wrote about the product and google directs searchers here for more info on it.