how ong will a wine last after it has been uncorked??

If it is only you drinking the wine everytime you open one, you should consider 375's (1/2 bottles) more or step up your drinking .

To answer your question, it comes down to the type of wine, the quality of the wine and your tolerance for what is "drinkable" after opening. For me, non fortified (Ports and other sweeties) wines go in the fridge and I pretty much have to finish the next day or I don't enjoy it at all. There are some exceptions maybe, like super high quality tannic young cabs maybe, that can "hang in there" an extra day or so. Air plugs may help too.

I finished a CDP that I opened on Tuesday, two days later. At that point, I just poured into a paper cup and had it with some pasta, just to finish it off. It was pretty gone by my standards, but drinkable. A cheap wine will be pretty awful after just one day or day of . The wine quality really has a lot to do with it. What are you opening?

My wife enjoys wine too and we have company often, so 90% of the time, we finish the bottle, unless it's a cheapie and then I don't care and use it for cooking for a few days.

I have stored good Ports in the fridge for up to a week though.

Balkie-As Hunter said, get a few half bottles(not "splits"-those are 187ml), pour the first half of the 750ml into the half bottle, almost all the way to the top. Take the cork out of the newly opened bottle(that way, you know what's in the 375ml two weeks later) & push it in until wine begins to squeeze out, so there is NO air. Put it back in the fridge or wine cooler. Whenever you open it(even a month later), it tastes like it has had about 10 minutes of air.

Forget argon or nitrogen gas in the half-empty 750ml bottle. I find it to be worthless, unless you're drinking the rest the next day. If you're really anal, you could flush the 375ml with gas BEFORE you pour the first portion from the 750ml.

quote:

If you're really anal, you could flush the 375ml with gas BEFORE you pour the first portion from the 750ml.

How many cans of nitrogen do YOU go through in a given year Ron?

GA, you put the "arg" in argon.

If we're allowed to recommend specific products here, I've had great success with the Vacu-Vin system. It's cheap and works quite well, so long as you remember to seal up the wine at the end of the evening.

quote:

Originally posted by Gigond Ass:

quote:

If you're really anal, you could flush the 375ml with gas BEFORE you pour the first portion from the 750ml.

How many cans of nitrogen do YOU go through in a given year Ron?

Well, it's a multi-tasking event for me when I use it.

I think if you get an air pump system it should last 2 or 3 days. Like others have said the better quality the wine the better it will store. Also I personally think it lasts tastes better if you don't refridgerate.

quote:

Originally posted by mcieri:
I think if you get an air pump system it should last 2 or 3 days. Like others have said the better quality the wine the better it will store. Also I personally think it lasts tastes better if you don't refridgerate.

I still wonder why people use the air pump system? A vaccum cannot be created in a bottle and the wine is consistantly exposed to O2. Buy a can of inert gas and save the pumping.

A couple of years ago a friend and I did a blind taste of the following storage methods:

1) Recorking.
2) Vacu-vin and recorking.
3) Reduce the headspace by pouring into half bottles and recorking.
4) The nitrogen/argon gas you can buy with a recork.

4 bottles were used, and one glass was poured from each bottle to introduce some air into the bottle. It was checked 5 days later. I understand I'm just a person on a newsgroup and I understand that tastes differ, so I would of course encourage everyone to see what they find works best; however, to my tastes, only the headspace reduction method retained as much of the original character of the wine as possible. The other methods were either oxidized, slightly acetic, or extremely flat.

When I open a new bottle I split the contents between two half bottles and recork. I've never tried to keep a bottle beyond 5 days, but all but the most nuanced wines retain their character admirably with this method.

Two weeks ago, someone stuck a half full bottle of 2002 Tiefenbrunner Chardonnay into the fridge at our country house without even sticking a cork in the bottle. Last Saturday, after about 10 days, I discovered it and was about to throw it out - but I wanted to see just how bad it had gotten. I was quite shocked to discover that it was still quite drinkable. I never had it in the first place, so I can't make any taste comparison, but it was still fairly fruity with no trace of vinegar. Perhaps my fridge dispenses a layer of argon over the contents...

I say this everytime this discussion comes up.

If we drink half the bottle, I vacu-vin the bottle, and throw it in the fridge. Sometimes I won't get back to it for 3-4 days... and it is always drinkable, with hardly any loss of original flavors/aromas. Maybe I'm just not as sensitive as others.