The best ways to preserve wine after opening (2024)

FAQs

What do you use to preserve wine? ›

Vacuum pumps suck the air out of an opened bottle so it can be re-sealed hermetically without the oxygen affecting the wine. This is an affordable option commonly used in restaurants and bars. Vacu Vin is the best-known brand – this company invented the vacuum pump wine preservation system.

Store the bottle upright to minimize the surface area of wine exposed to oxygen. Refrigerate after opening, no matter the colour of the wine. Chilling the wine slows the oxygen molecules. If you have less than half of the bottle remaining, transfer the wine to a smaller bottle before refrigerating.

How Long Does Open Wine Last? In general, table wines, which are your typical non-sparkling reds and whites, last three to five days after they've been opened. Fortified wines, like Port or Sherry, can last a few weeks or even months after they've been opened.

The most important thing you want to do is make sure that your wine is stored in a cool, dark, environment. A temperature between 45 – 65 degrees is ideal, with a humidity level of around 70 percent to help prevent the drying of the corks.

You can usually leave it for at least a few days before the wine starts to taste different. However, we wouldn't advise you push this too far. Pouring yourself a glass from a bottle that's been open for longer than a week may leave you with an unpleasant taste in your mouth.

Store wine at a consistent temperature and humidity.

Aim for 55 degrees, but any temperature between 45 and 65 will do. The humidity level for storing your wine should hover around 70 percent to avoid dried out corks, which can allow air into the wine. Humidity higher than 70 percent can cause mold.

Salt, honey, and certain fruits are good for preventing foods from spoiling. These natural preservatives keep harmful microbes from growing. Today, natural and artificial preservatives protect foods from this same contamination. Preservatives are also used in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals to keep them from going bad.

Refrigerate Open Wine Bottles to Preserve Them

Cold temperatures significantly delay oxidation reactions, but the open wine bottles will still be changing in your refrigerator. Just as you store open white wine in the refrigerator, you should refrigerate red wine after opening.

Yes. Drinking old opened wine is not harmful as no dangerous bacteria are present. Even if the wine appears to have mold, you won't get ill from drinking it (unlike with spoiled food, for example.) However, the flavor and aroma of spoiled wine or corked wine (cork taint) won't be pleasant and can taste weird.

If you stopper red wines with a cork and keep them in a cool, dark place, you can still drink these three to five days after you open them. Red wines contain more tannins and natural acidity, which protect them again the damage from oxygen. The more tannins in a wine, the longer you get with them.

Should wine be stored flat or tilted? ›

Wine bottles should always be stored either horizontally, at a 45º angle with the cork facing down, or somewhere in between. This will keep the wine in constant contact with the cork ensuring no air gets into the bottle.

The best way to keep wine after you've opened it is to remember to recork it and put it in the fridge. By recorking and refrigerating, you're limiting the wine's exposure to oxygen, heat, and light. These are all the things that take a bottle of wine from being next-day-decent to downright disgusting.

If you want to be on the safe side, just place your bottles in your fridge. Wine Storage Rule #2: You should always store wine on its side, rather than upright. You may think that because you've seen wine sold upright in stores, this is the correct way to store it, but unfortunately, it is not.

A wine that has gone bad from being left open will have a sharp sour flavor similar to vinegar that will often burn your nasal passages in a similar way to horseradish. It will also commonly have caramelized applesauce-like flavors (aka “Sherried” flavors) from the oxidation.

If you're wondering how long wine can last after opening, a bottle of white or rosé wine should be able to keep going for at least two to three days in the fridge, if using a cork stopper. But it varies depending on the style involved. Some wine styles may last for up to five days after opening.

The best wines can be stored for more than 100 years, but most great wines will reach their peak before they turn 50 years old.

'Keep your wine in the darkest, coldest place you've got in your house. The enemy of wine is oxygen first and temperature second – so a consistently cool and dark place is your best bet.

Traditionally, sulfur dioxide has been used to control unwanted micro-organisms during winemaking, where it is usually added to bins of machine-harvested grapes and after malolactic fermentation. Sulfur dioxide acts as both an antimicrobial agent and an antioxidant in wine (Romano and Suzzi 1993).

Some of the most popular and effective natural preservatives available include rosemary extract, neem oil, citrus oils, citric acid, grapeseed extract, and buffered vinegar.

Using an inert gas cover is great ways to limit oxygen exposure to both must and wine. Options may include using carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen, and argon. CO2 is commonly used during the initial grape processing stage.

Which wine has the most preservatives? ›

In the main, reds contain fewer preservatives than white because they already have the preservative benefits of tannins and colour pigments. In fact, the symptoms probably come from the phenols in seeds, skins and stems that are part of the winemaking process.

Keep the open wine bottle out of light and stored under room temperature. In most cases, a refrigerator goes a long way to keeping wine for longer, even red wines. When stored at colder temperatures, the chemical processes slow down, including the process of oxidation that takes place when oxygen hits the wine.

Dispensing/preservation systems can keep wine drinkable for up to a month or more. Open bottles are held in glass-fronted cases and each bottle is attached to a spigot. As the dispenser siphons wine from the bottle, an inert gas such as nitrogen or argon fills up the empty space, keeping oxygen out.

Although it's unconventional, the answer is yes. You can freeze wine! The frozen wine won't be quite the same when it thaws, so you probably won't want to drink it straight out of the glass. That doesn't mean you can't use it to make wine coolers like sangria, and frozen wine is perfect for cooking, too.

"What is certain about wine and other types of alcohol is that drinking beyond moderation has clear impacts on a person's health," warns Dr. Septimus. "Regularly drinking more wine than recommended increases a person's risk of developing cancer, liver disease, chronic pancreatitis, sleep disorders and more."

When stored properly and kept unopened, white wines can often outlive their recommended drinking window by 1-2 years, red wines by 2-3 years, and cooking wines by 3-5 years. Fine wine — as you may have guessed — can typically be consumed for decades.

Even though a wine will probably taste different if it's been open for a couple days—including possibly the alcohol sticking out a bit more—that doesn't mean the percent of alcohol by volume will change. Same thing with changing a wine's temperature or even aging a wine—alcohol percentages don't change.

Wine needs to be resealed after opening because it will begin to oxidize once coming into contact with oxygen. The air opens up the tannins in the wine and deteriorates the flavor. This is caused by bacteria in the air called acetobacter.

Yes, it's OK. But if there's a bit of sediment left in the bottle, you might want to give it a quick rinse first, before pouring the wine back in.

If you stopper red wines with a cork and keep them in a cool, dark place, you can still drink these three to five days after you open them. Red wines contain more tannins and natural acidity, which protect them again the damage from oxygen.

Can wine be stored in mason jars? ›

Simply pour your wine into the jar, filling it as close to the brim as you possibly can, and store it in the fridge. The rings and lids on mason jars make an airtight seal, which works just as well for wine storage as it does for pickling or canning.

2/ Keep your wine in the fridge

Cooler temperatures slow down chemical processes, including oxidation. A re-closed bottle of red or white wine in the fridge can stay relatively fresh for up to five days.

White wine: 1–2 years past the printed expiration date. Red wine: 2–3 years past the printed expiration date. Cooking wine: 3–5 years past the printed expiration date. Fine wine: 10–20 years, stored properly in a wine cellar.

You can freeze any wine, from white to red to in between. Frozen white wine is perfect for making peach wine coolers while frozen red wine is ideal for sangria recipes. One of our favorite summer drinks is frozé (frozen rosé).

Red Wine. 3–5 days in a cool dark place with a cork The more tannin and acidity the red wine has, the longer it tends to last after opening. So, a light red with very little tannin, such as Pinot Noir, won't last open as long as a rich red like Petite Sirah.

Yes. Drinking old opened wine is not harmful as no dangerous bacteria are present. Even if the wine appears to have mold, you won't get ill from drinking it (unlike with spoiled food, for example.) However, the flavor and aroma of spoiled wine or corked wine (cork taint) won't be pleasant and can taste weird.