Wine Storage and the ‘I Drink Alone’ Dilemma

When I get an email from a friend saying, “You should check this out” it tends to pique my interest, especially when the subject is wine preservation.

First, I should say I’m an avowed Vacu Vin user.  With a wife that’s nearly a teetotaler, and a constant flux of six to eight bottles of opened wine in the fridge, a Vacu Vin and a wine crock started with a vinegar mother is de rigueur for any self-respecting wine taster, as important as having a corkscrew, and especially important if you’re a wine taster that likes to play the field across a number of different bottles, similar to fiddling with your iPod to match your mood.

Pouring a week old wine into crocks (before the bottle hits the recycling bin or gets upcycled into drinking glasses) that turn the bottle remnants into wine vinegar (red and white) definitely soothes any anxiety from watching a wine circle the drain, the Vacu Vin notwithstanding.

So, when the tip came for the Platypus “PlatyPreserve” wine preserver I took heed.

The Platypus, familiar to campers and outdoorsman, is a reputable water carrier noted for its durability, its malleability in your pack, and the fact that it doesn’t pick up or throw off scents—meaning that the container that carries orange juice today can carry water tomorrow without cross-flavor contamination.

For its part, the PlatyPreserve is a wine-centric brand extension from the Platypus water carrier and technology.  Made in the U.S. and just slightly bigger than a 750ml bottle of wine, the wine preserver has received rave consumer reviews on Amazon.com and other outlets.  And, at $9.95 for one, it pays for itself for the wine enthusiast who winces with reticence at willfully pouring leftover wine into a vinegar crock or down the drain.

Likewise, if you’re an outdoor enthusiast, the PlatyPreserve could make a willing companion for some vino at the end of the day, when a proper bottle may be cumbersome to carry in pack or, at the least, from hither and yon.

One user at Amazon.com said of the PlatyPreserve, “I have used every form of wine preserving system out there: vacuum pumps, nitrogen tanks/taps etc. etc. This one beats them all cheaply and simply, by doing better what they all attempt to do, that is, prevent contact between wine and oxygen as much as possible.”

I decided to take the test myself.

I picked up five bottles of an inexpensive red wine – the Beringer Stone Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon, found for $4.99 a bottle.  I suppose if I wanted to be thematically correct I could have chosen the Redwood Creek, positioned as an outdoorsman wine, but when $5 bottles are the game I don’t get choosy.

I placed one full bottle into a PlatyPreserve, a half bottle into a second PlatyPreserve, a half bottle under Vacu Vin, and a half bottle under regular cork and put it into the fridge for seven days to see what would happen.

I blind tasted each of the wines against a control bottle that was freshly opened.

The results of the blind tasting were somewhat of a surprise: a wine under Vacu Vin was the only bottle I guessed correctly, but the results also indicated optimism for the PlatyPreserve.

My notes said:

Control bottle (freshly opened):  Bright cherry, blackberry, candied nose – Dr. Pepper flavors, bubblegum cotton candy, vanilla Stoli vodka and brown sugar.  A fruit and oak wine, sweet, manipulated with an artificial finish.  Drinkable at the end of the night.

Wine #1 (Under Vacu Vin):  Nose is reductive with stewed flavors.  Wine is starting to unravel with fruit minimized and acid coming to the front.  Still drinkable and inoffensive.

Wine #2 (Full PlatyPreserve): Closest to control.  Nose minimized slightly.  Palate is still together and pleasant.

Wine #3 (Beringer under cork): Nose is gone, reductive and stewed.  Oxidized.

Wine #4 (1/2 full PlatyPreserve):  Nose is gone, alcohol and wood with faint blackberry.  Oxidized.

Lessons learned:  The wine under cork and the ½ full PlatyPreserve had virtually identical flavor profiles—both wines were shot.  The full PlatyPreserve was in good shape and the wine under a Vacu Vin was in reasonably good shape.  Given this, the natural comparison needs to be made with the Vacu Vin versus the ½ full PlatyPreserve and on that count the Vacu Vin wins handily.

And, of course, if you’re at home drinking, I can’t imagine why you would need to store a full bottle in a PlatyPreserve.

My overall recommendation: Use a Vacu Vin for home purposes while the PlatyPreserve makes a suitable airtight companion for day hikes, short overnight camping trips and when lugging a glass bottle is impractical.