Smaller Bottle Settles Problem of Leftover Wine

Originally Published in the Savor Section of the Newark Star Ledger on Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Article by T. J. Foderaro, Star-Ledger Staff

Q. So I live alone and I've run into this dilemma a few times. I'll open a nice bottle of wine with dinner, have a glass or two and then there is all this other wine I will want to drink at some other point. So I jam the cork back in and stick it in the fridge and hope for the best. Do you know of any good wines that come in smaller bottles? What would you advise for storing excess wine? How long should a half-finished bottle of wine be kept around before it starts to really suffer in quality? And for wine I'm not going to finish in the time recommended, do you have any favorite recipes that would use up what I haven't gotten around to drinking? -- Elizabeth, New York City

A. The Nose has never heard of such a thing. Not finishing a bottle of wine the same night you open it? Sacrilege!

Seriously, you raise a good point, and not only for singles, but also for couples where one drinks red while the other drinks white, or they prefer different kinds of wine.

Your best bet may be to buy smaller bottles. The standard wine bottle is 750 milliliters, or about 24 liquid ounces. That works out to about 5 average- sized glasses (the standard restaurant pour being around 5 ounces).

Fortunately, many of the best wines also come in half bottles (or 375 milliliters). This includes nearly every Bordeaux chateau, many of the top Burgundies and Rhone wines, a good selection of Chianti Classico and a growing number of California wines.

"There are more and more every day," says Gary Fisch, one of New Jersey's more knowledgeable wine merchants, with stores in Madison, Bernardsville and Chester.

Gary's Wine and Marketplace currently offers about 50 wines in half bottles, including respected names such as Ridge, Justin and Merryvale. If you can't get to New Jersey, Manhattan has more than its fair share of serious wine shops where you should be able to find generous selections of half bottles.

A few words of caution when shopping for half bottles. Fisch says you need to check the vintage to make sure the bottle hasn't been sitting around too long. Half bottles tend to "turn" faster than full bottles, so you want a recent vintage (1-2 years old for most whites, 2-4 years old for most reds).

And be prepared to pay a premium for the smaller bottle. Wine merchants often can buy popular brands at steep discounts if they order multiple cases, and the savings is usually passed along to the consumer. But half bottles are a specialty item that rarely get discounted.

At Gary's Wine and Marketplace, for example, a full bottle of Blackstone merlot from California is currently on sale for $7.99, while the half bottle is $6.99. Such price discrepancies are generally less blatant with more expensive wines, Fisch says. Still, a half bottle will almost always cost you at least a little more than half the price of a full bottle.

As for storing an opened bottle, there are a dozen or more gadgets on the market, ranging from simple stoppers to elaborate systems that fill the bottle with an inert gas and keep it at a constant temperature.
Fisch recommends a manual pump called a Vacu-Vin that allows you to vacate most of the air from a half-empty bottle once you seal it with a rubber stopper. He sells them for $12.99, which includes the pump and two rubber stoppers.

But even a Vacu-Vin will extend the life of an open bottle only by a day or two, Fisch said. In general, a young white wine can last in the refrigerator for up to a week before it starts to decline. Reds vary widely, depending on the grape variety, region and vintage; some even taste better a day or two after opening. Young full-bodied reds can usually last for several days, while older, more delicate wines rarely survive the night.

A couple of wine accessory catalogs – Wine Enthusiast (www.wineenthusiast.com) and International Wine Accessories (www.iwawine.com) – carry a full selection of wine-storage equipment.

Whichever method you choose, Fisch and other wine experts recommend storing leftover wine in the refrigerator, both white and red, to slow its deterioration.

As for cooking with leftover wine, I’d be careful. Most chefs will tell you the quality of wine can make a big difference in the kitchen, especially when it’s a key ingredient in a recipe. If an open wine has begin to develop off aromas and favors, you don’t want to cook with it any more than you want to drink it.