Our Tips for Preserving an Open Bottle of Wine

This article is primarily intended for restaurant owners who offer wine by the glass. With this practice, you open bottles without finishing them, which can result in waste.

Here are our tips for storing opened wine. These tips can also be used at home when you haven’t finished a bottle.

3 Tips for Storing Wine Properly

If you serve wine at your bar or restaurant, you naturally want to get the most out of it—right down to the last drop. It would be a shame to waste a good wine by letting it breathe…

Here are a few techniques for storing your wine effectively after opening, ensuring it stays fresh for the next few days. These techniques vary depending on the type of wine, so you’ll need to adapt them based on the characteristics of the opened bottle. For example, some white wines are very sweet, such as Sauternes: these wines can be stored longer than others because the sugar helps preserve an opened bottle of white wine.

The quality and shelf life of an opened bottle of wine depend primarily on temperature, light, and the amount of oxygen in the bottle. These factors can cause your wine to spoil.

Put your bottle in the refrigerator

Be sure to keep your bottles away from high temperatures, which accelerate the oxidation process. Therefore, avoid placing them near heat sources: ideally, the temperature should not exceed 15°C.

For white wine, we recommend storing it in a wine cellar or the refrigerator. Wine experts advise keeping opened red wine in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, depending on the wine, and taking it out a few hours before serving so it reaches the right temperature.

Keep bottles away from light sources

Red wine does not fare well in light. Avoid storing an opened bottle in a room with too much natural light or in direct sunlight. The best place to store it is in a cupboard or in a box.

Close the bottle immediately after serving

Finally, you need to minimize oxidation of the wine: when air comes into contact with the wine, it triggers a chemical reaction, causing the wine to gradually lose its balance and become flat.

It is therefore essential to remember to reseal the bottle immediately after serving. The traditional recommendation is to replace the original cork upside down. You can also decant the wine into a smaller bottle: the fuller the bottle, the less the wine will spoil.

The Best Preservation Tools for Professionals

To keep an opened bottle fresh for several weeks, we recommend using a professional system designed specifically for storing opened bottles of wine or for wine-by-the-glass dispensers. This will help preserve the quality of your wine for several weeks. We’ve selected the best storage solutions for you.

Presorvac

Presorvac stands out for its effectiveness. It is a simple system that removes oxygen from the bottle using rotational pressure. This process prevents oxidation, thereby ensuring better wine preservation.

This system works for white, red, and sparkling wines. Its relatively high cost (around 350 euros) is quickly offset by its effectiveness.

Vacuvin

This system consists of a small pump and a rubber stopper that allow you to remove the air from the bottle and keep the wine fresh for two to three days.

Vacuvin can be considered time-consuming, as it can take up to 30 seconds to vacuum-seal a bottle. It’s a delicate process because the rubber valve must not be damaged by over-pumping.

This tool is fairly simple and affordable (costing around 15 euros), and pays for itself fairly quickly. It is designed for short-term storage of smaller bottles that do not need to be kept for several months.

The Advineo Tower

This tool allows you to reseal opened bottles to keep them fresh longer. It uses vacuum preservation—a natural method that prevents the remaining wine in the bottle from oxidizing. This system is designed for red, white, and sparkling wines!

In the specific case of sparkling wines, CO2 is injected into the bottle before it is sealed.

Nitrogen-based systems

These systems allow opened bottles to be stored for two to three weeks. The process involves replacing the wine with food-grade nitrogen each time a pour is made. The nitrogen prevents the remaining wine from oxidizing. Nitrogen-based systems also have the advantage of regulating the wine’s temperature.

Nitrogen-based systems are typically used in restaurants that serve high-quality, expensive wines, which are therefore in limited demand. Such preservation systems are relatively expensive, as maintenance costs must also be taken into account. While they are effective, they are primarily intended for high-quality products.

Coravin

This tool was recently introduced in the United States and offers an innovative solution to the problem of storing opened wine. To avoid having to reseal the bottle after opening it, Coravin suggests... not opening it at all. A hollow needle pierces the cork to extract the wine, much like a syringe. As the wine is drawn out, the needle injects a neutral gas.

This process allows wine to be drawn off over several months without spoiling. This innovative system is quite expensive, as the syringe alone costs around 300 euros, not to mention the price of the gas cartridges. While this technique is appealing for fine wines and prestigious labels, it is not very cost-effective for less prestigious wines.

The revolution in wine distribution

Other methods address the issue of storing opened bottles of wine by eliminating the bottle altogether. This involves offering a wine dispenser or another system for storing and presenting the product.

Bag-in-box

This system is revolutionizing wine service, as the bottle is replaced by a "box". In other words, a box is used to hold the wine. This system is particularly common among restaurant owners for serving wine by the pitcher. The tradition of serving wine by the glass remains tied to serving by the bottle.

Advineo

This is a wine-by-the-glass dispenser. The concept is innovative and allows for wine to be served by the glass while ensuring optimal preservation of the wine in the bottle. This system preserves the wine for up to three weeks under an inert gas atmosphere (specifically nitrogen and argon) and keeps the wine at the proper serving temperature.

One of the advantages of this system is its appearance and aesthetic appeal. With its stylish design, the wine dispenser can be placed on the counter to showcase the wines to customers.

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