by Paul Winalski » Wed Jan 24, 2024 1:42 pm
This was a 750ml bottle. I'll update the tasting note. I live alone, and decades ago I decided that if I was going to both enjoy fine wine and have a working liver, I'd have to use some wine preservation system. I settled on a nitrogen dispensing system. It consists of stopper/dispensers--devices with a tube that extends down into the bottle, a rubber stopper to seal the device in place in the bottleneck, and a lever-operated dispenser on the top. This connects to a standard-sized nitrogen bottle, obtainable at any welding supply company. It works on a bottle-exchange basis like Blue Rhino propane tanks--you take your empty bottle to the welding supply store and exchange it for a full one.
The brand name is Winekeeper. It works like this. First you uncork the bottle. Then you put the stopper/dispenser in the bottleneck but don't tighten the seal. You connect the stopper/dispenser to the nitrogen supply and let nitrogen flow into the bottle for 10 seconds or so to purge the air out of the wine bottle's ullage space and replace it with nitrogen. You disconnect from the nitrogen supply, tighten down the stopper/dispenser, reconnect to the nitrogen, and you're good to go. I've kept partly full wine bottles for over a month this way. You always get a fresh pour, as if you'd just uncorked the bottle.
The system does have its drawbacks. You have to be a bit careful with wines like vintage Port that throw a heavy sediment that you don't have the stopper/dispenser tube sucking up sediment. You can still do decanting, but on a per-serving basis.
David, I stopped buying vintage Port with the 2000 vintage as there's a good chance the vintages after that won't be mature until after I'm gone.
-Paul W.
P. S. - If you visit the Winekeeper website, you'll see that they offer all sorts of fancy cabinetry to house their system. Also, their standard consumer offerings use non-standard (small), non-refillable nitrogen bottles, for which they charge a small fortune. Their commercial wine dispensers (for wine shops and restaurants) do use standard gas bottle fittings. You can buy a pressure regulator that fits industry standard nitrogen bottles at one end and a Winekeeper stopper/dispenser at the other end from their spare parts page. That is the setup that I use. I can give you the part numbers if you're interested.
The wine is still rather young-looking, although it's thrown a ton of sediment. Classic, complex Taylor aromas after some aeration. Lovely flavors and excellent balance on the palate, but still a bit of rough tannins there. It struck me as surprisingly youthful for a 27 year old Port. I plan to wait at least five more years before I open another one of these. Double Curly Moe.