Wine Shield : Another way to keep opened wine fresh

Got wine left over that just can’t be consumed?  Have a bunch of partial bottles left over after a tasting party?  As many who have tried saving bottles already know, you can’t just put the corks back in and expect the wine to be much good later on.

This is because exposure to oxygen in the air can ruin wine in a day.  Oxygen quickly combines with many of the ingredients in wine that provide flavor, effectively destroying (oxidizing) them.  People in the winery business are keenly aware of this problem and take extensive precautions to make sure that their storage containers containing wine worth $1000’s doesn’t get trashed.

There are many ways to do this.  Suck out all the air from the container, replace the air with a type of gas that will not affect the wine, or you can place a plastic film right on top of the liquid that is left in the bottle.  Dozens of wine-saving products are available to consumers today, but they don’t all yield the same result.

Over the past 10 years many inventors have been hard at work perfecting ways to save a good bottle of wine from spoiling.  And it looks like the inventions will just keep coming.  One of the more recently introduced products is the “Wine Shield” by Wine Preserva, Inc.  It’s basically a plastic disc that you insert into the partially finished bottle, allowing it to float on the remaining wine to keep air away from the liquid.

Here’s how it works.  Because the disk is flexible, like a circular piece of bubble wrap, it can easily be shoved into the bottle where it unravels and drops on top of the liquid.  This makes for a very easy-to-handle alternative to the more commonly known gas canister.

In fact, the Wine Shield’s small size and non-metallic nature allows it to be a very good travelling companion!  Take it from wine tourists, on airplanes, gas canisters aren’t your friend!  But with a little pack of plastic disks, carry-on is no problem, just slip it in a pouch and pass thru.  Check into a hotel, open a bottle of wine, insert a plastic disk, and stick the cork back in.  It’ll be nearly as good tomorrow.

As always, Pinot Noir loses its “magic” the fastest no matter what.  So for Pinot, seal it with a Wine Shield, put it in the fridge, let it warm before drinking, and finish ASAP.

Article by Tom Peiffer, Phoenix Wine Shopping Examiner at Examiner.com

View more of Tom’s articles on Examiner.com by visiting his writer’s page.