Max DeNike: Uncorked
Death by oxygen: How to kill a good wine

— "How long does wine last once it has been opened? For as long as it’s in my glass!"
—Wine adage

It’s a funny line, but not very helpful.

Wine will last as well as the consumer handles it. Leave a bottle open all night with no cork and it’ll probably be pretty disgusting the next morning.

Is there a way to save it, or bring it back to life? No, unfortunately. Once oxygen has done its thing, the wine doesn’t have a chance.

For example. The other week I was having lunch with my mother. She was making a salad dressing. She went to the pantry and grabbed a bottle of wine. The wine had been opened and recorked and was only a third of the way full. She handed it to me and whispered, "Look what happened," as if she was letting me in on a big secret.

I looked at it, removed the cork and took a big whiff. Wow was it sour!

It had been opened more than a year ago and forgotten, and now it was quite a tasty vinegar. Maybe because it was a high-quality pinot noir it tasted good, but this is not going to happen very often. She was proud of the find and mixed it with some olive oil.

The matter at hand is: Why did that happen and how do we stop it?

Oxygen, for starters, kills wine. The basis of life on earth is actually the basis of death for wine.

When a wine is uncorked, it’s "a crucial moment in time," according to thewinedoctor.com. "It is a point of no-return, as once cork has been separated from bottle, the wine is exposed to oxygen in the air, which has the potential to cause great harm."

Oxygen breaks down the aromas and flavors of wine. It extracts all the wonderful things about wine that keep us opening bottle after bottle, but can make us furious when it has too much contact with the wine. In fact, a young, full-bodied red in its first three to five years of life can benefit from oxygen exposure when it’s opened.

It’s called decanting.

If you’re not familiar, decanting is simply pouring the wine into another receptacle. The process frees the wine, in a sense. It allows more of the fruit flavors and aromas to come out and greet the drinker. Decanting will also remove the sediment in an unfiltered wine.

Think about it in this way: Tannins do a little sparring act with oxygen and when the wine is highly tannic (like a young, robust red) it can knock the oxygen out before it kills the wine. When you hear "soft tannins," it’s in reference to a smooth, glassy feeling in the mouth which comes from taming the tannins. However, oxygen eventually defeats the tannins and ergo the wine.

What should one do to stall this process?

There are several ways to keep a wine once it’s open, but only one is truly right. Two very popular methods of wine preservation are the hand-held vacuum and the can of inert gas. Both, however, are just a waste of money and time.

The best way to store opened wine is to put whatever amount you’re not going to drink in a smaller container: a glass bottle, a jar or anything that has a tight-fitting lid. Plasticware would work, I suppose, but try to stick with glass.

The most practical container is an empty half bottle of wine and the cork it came with.

After you decide how much you’re going to drink, chose a container accordingly. This is why half bottles work the best because it’s safe to say you’re only going to drink half the bottle. Immediately after opening the wine, even before you taste it, pour the amount you’re not going to drink in the container and close it fast. Try not to have any air left in the bottle, or as little as possible. Then put it in the refrigerator until you want to drink it again.

Why the refrigerator? It’s cool, and thus slows the wine’s aging process.

This will help keep the wine drinkable, but only for a few days and it’s not like having unopened wine. Some people will argue that pouring wine from the bottle to the container oxidizes the heck out of it. Yes, but not necessarily in a bad way.

Most of us drink young wine that already benefits from some oxygen exposure, but if you’re dealing with a mature wine, throw this idea out.

Some mature wines need decanting for several hours, others might lose all their pizzazz in the first hour. They tend not to keep for more than a day.

What about sweet wine and high-alcohol wine? Well, those are different. Sugar and alcohol are natural preservers, so they can stand up to more oxygen contact. You can enjoy them for days, even weeks. Just recork and don’t worry about it.

Wait, what about sparkling wine? I say don’t open it unless you’re going to finish it soon. But, liquor stores carry special stoppers for sparklers that preserve some fizz overnight.

One can say, the heck with any or all of these wine preserving ideas, and hope for good vinegar. One could stick the cork back in and drink it for the next few days as it gets worse. Or, one could just finish the bottle right then and there.

Max DeNike is 23, works for a winery and believes wine isn’t just for old people. Contact him at svreeken@santacruzsentinel.com.