Don’t you hate when you open a bottle of wine and have to leave it unfinished?

Because if you don’t finish it, the wine’s going to get stale. When you come back a few days later to pour a glass, the aroma and flavor have eroded. The wine doesn’t taste like it did when you first opened the bottle, and the best you can do with it is add it to spaghetti sauce.

Thank heavens they’ve invented wine preserver!

You see, when a bottle of wine is opened oxygen begins to decay the wine. Exposure to air deteriorates the wine’s color, fragrance and flavor. The principle behind wine preservers is to remove the oxygen, keeping the original wine characteristics intact as though the cork had never been removed.

There are a few different types of preservers available today, ranging in price from $ 7 to about $ 900.

The simplest one is a can of inert, non-toxic gas (the company doesn’t specify, but most likely it’s argon gas) that you squirt into the wine bottle while slipping the cork back in. The gas replaces the oxygen in the bottle, keeping the wine from spoiling.

This product, marketed as Private Preserve Wine Preserver, promises to give about 120 uses from one .60 ounce can. This preserver lists at $ 11.95 per can, although you may be able to find it online at about $ 7.

Another simple wine preserver is basically a vacuum that sucks the oxygen out of the wine bottle. Some offer bottle stoppers of different sizes in order to fit most wine bottles. Two popular models are Vintage Vac and V-Gauge Wine Vacuum, and they retail between $ 20 and $ 40.

A more complicated wine preserver is the Wine Saver PRO Preserve & Serve Wine System. This preserver allows five wine bottles to be simultaneously preserved with the argon gas canister located under the counter. Promotional materials state that this system will preserve opened wine for weeks, primed and ready to pour through their dispensing spigots. This model retails for about $ 900. It is designed primarily for bars, restaurants and hotels, or for the home wine cellar.

All of these products have received favorable reviews, indicating they do a good job at preserving the freshness of opened wine for days and even weeks at a time.

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