In principle, you should empty a bottle of wine on the day you open it. As soon as the wine is open, it begins to breathe. With every additional hour of contact with oxygen, the wine generally loses its drinking pleasure, as oxygen causes the wine to oxidize. The consequence is that it becomes undrinkable after a while. For a variety of reasons, however, it can happen that you can't or don't want to empty the bottle on the same day. A half-full bottle of the best red wine is left over from a delicious candlelit dinner with your partner or not all the bottles were emptied at the last party at home. Perhaps you simply follow the advice of many nutritionists and doctors and only enjoy wine in moderation. Even if only a small amount remains in the bottle, it's still too good to throw away. After all, unlike beer, for example, it doesn't taste stale the next day.

The general rule is:

Wine that has been opened should be resealed and stored in a cool place as soon as possible. The more that is left in the bottle, the longer the contents will keep, provided it is kept refrigerated. Why? An almost full bottle naturally contains less air and therefore less oxygen to oxidize.

Storage in the refrigerator:

The reason why open wines cannot be stored for so long without losing more or less of their flavor is, as already mentioned, the oxygen. However, the oxidation process can be significantly slowed down at the usual refrigerator temperatures of 4 to 7 degrees. For this reason, opened wine should always be stored in the refrigerator. Depending on the grape variety, a red wine can keep for 3 to 5 days in the fridge. A red wine with little tannin (e.g. a Pinot Noir) lasts significantly less than a strong wine with a good level of tannin and acidity (e.g. a Petite Sirah or Cabernet Sauvignon). White wines can usually be stored in the fridge for 2 to 5 days. Light white wine, rosé and sweet white wine will keep for approx. 5 to 7 days in a sealed bottle. Full-bodied white wines, such as Chardonnay or Viognier matured in barriques, often have little acidity, which shortens their shelf life. However, such a wine should be able to survive 3 days without any dramatic loss of flavor.

A little tip: Red wine should be taken out of the fridge one to two hours before pouring to literally warm up.

Simple closure:

To prevent a sustained supply of oxygen, the bottle must be sealed as airtight as possible. The easiest way to preserve open wine is to put the cork back into the open bottle to make it airtight. Alternatively, you can use a commercially available wine stopper. The increasingly popular screw caps or glass stoppers are clearly advantageous here. But what problem remains? The remaining air in the bottle - and the emptier the bottle, the more air it contains.

Vacuum and gas pumps:

The first way to reduce the air in the bottle is to use a vacuum pump. The air is pumped out of the bottle and then sealed. However, opinions are divided here: Some argue that this is only a partial vacuum and that the wine will continue to react with oxygen. Some users are of the opinion that the vacuum damages the aromas, while advocates of the vacuum pump swear by its suitability. Comprehensive research into this is not yet available.

Another option is to use a gas pump, which replaces the oxygen with a gas mixture. However, such a purchase only makes sense if you want to store opened bottles regularly over a longer period of time. The purchase costs, as well as the subsequent purchase price of the gas cartridges, are not cheap.

Decanting:

A very effective method that is not yet known to everyone. It is very simple and inexpensive. Either directly after opening the bottle (if you know in advance how much you want to drink) or after drinking the wine, you should decant the remaining contents of the bottle into a smaller glass bottle (alternatively: a small glass jar) with a screw cap. This way, the remaining air content in the small bottle is much lower than in the original wine bottle. In addition, the surface area that can react with the remaining air is even smaller in a small bottle when stored upright due to the smaller diameter.

Some people also advise filling the wine into small PET bottles and squeezing them until there is hardly any air left in the bottle. The clear disadvantage of this is that liquids in PET bottles can absorb substances from the container, which is definitely not good for the taste of the wine in the long term. Our recommendation therefore: Use smaller, well-cleaned glass containers if you want to store the wine for longer than a week.

What else you should bear in mind:

Do not store open wines lying down. This increases the surface area that can react with the air in the bottle.

Avoid contact with light and heat. Daylight is already not beneficial for closed bottles, but open bottles can tolerate it even less.

Incidentally, even unopened bottles can age very quickly if they are exposed to too much heat and light on the top shelf of the supermarket, for example. Therefore, always store closed bottles in a cool, dark place.

Sparkling wine & co.: Silver spoon in the neck of the bottle?

The "spoon in the neck of the bottle" method is actually a myth. An open bottle of sparkling wine, Prosecco or champagne is best kept with a champagne bottle stopper that seals the bottle tightly. A bottle of sparkling wine that is at least half full can keep its carbon dioxide in the fridge for a good day. However, it is generally advisable to drink sparkling wine & co. immediately after opening the bottle, as only then do they have their full aroma and also the highest proportion of carbon dioxide.

Conclusion:

You have now gained a good insight into the best way to store opened wine & co. for a certain period of time. In the end, you should store it for as short a time as possible, as it quickly loses its taste and quality. Frankly, very few wine lovers will want to keep an opened bottle for too long. Unless it doesn't really taste good. But then you can safely throw it away.