Preserving Opened Bottles Of Wine

As a wine educator and wine writer, I get asked time and again- “how long can I keep undrunk or remaining wine from a bottle once it is opened?” and “what is best method for preserving half drunk wine?”

- Archana B

Each and every time I have answered the questions, today I felt like writing about the ways of preserving half drunk wine that can remain fresh and drinkable for several days after opening the bottle.

We often completely drink a bottle of wine once it is opened since we socialize a glass or two with family and friends and it gets finished. Once wine is completely finished drinking, there is no concern about preserving remaining wine that was purchased in expensive price. Usually, that is the case in Nepalese market. However, in some occasions, we have some undrunk wine and we want to keep it for future consumption but we know that it gets undrinkable in couple of days later and don’t know how to preserve it. I have seen people looking for ways of preserving undrunk wine as fresh as possible for several days’ later consumption but they have reported that wasn’t the case more than often. It is regrettable and disappointing to see such a good bottle of wine go wasted.

Don’t worry, we have several solutions to our problem and apply whichever we find easy, cost effective and appropriate. Below are tried and tested ways of preserving our wine as fresh as possible for at least next five days:

1. Argon Gas Preservation Method: This method of preserving half drunk wine is very simple and easy; however, unavailability of argon gas in Nepal; we couldn’t apply this method at the time of writing this article. Hope demand for this gas increases in future and we could import or create in Nepal.