A $25 bottle that pours five glasses at $15 each brings in $75, provided every glass sells. Pour the last one down the drain and the same bottle brings in $60. I’ve thrown away $5 of wine and a $15 sale along with it, and my wine cost on that bottle has gone from 33% to nearly 42% before I’ve spent a cent on preservation.
That’s the arithmetic I do before I look at any gadget. How many glasses will we sell before the wine fades? What does it cost to keep the last one in selling condition? And will anyone order it while it’s still good? The drain, in my experience, has never left a tip.
The Short Answer
As a rule of thumb, most still wines hold for three to five days once recorked and refrigerated. Sparkling wine generally gives you one to three days in the fridge with a proper sparkling-wine stopper. Many fortified wines can last several weeks, depending on the style.
A delicate white, a mature red and a young Cabernet don’t fade at the same pace. Temperature, the closure and how much wine is left in the bottle all have a say. A little air can help a tight young red open up. Give it enough time and the fruit fades, the nose goes flat and the wine tastes tired. Refrigeration slows that down, for reds too.
A wine can be perfectly drinkable and no longer taste like the wine I put on the list. What I ask before service is whether I’d be glad to put that glass in front of a guest at full price.
Bottle Movement Comes First
If a wine rarely sells, keeping it alive another week may only postpone its trip to the drain. The better question is why it’s on the list in the first place.
A Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Noir that pours all night is usually empty before oxygen gets a vote. A reserve Cabernet that sells more slowly may need protection for weeks. A mature bottle offered as an occasional special pour may have to stay, in effect, unopened between servings. I match the tool to how fast I expect the bottle to sell.
Coravin Timeless for Bottles That Should Stay Closed
I’ve used Timeless and found it reliable. A hollow needle goes through the cork, the wine comes out, and pure argon fills the space it leaves. Pull the needle and a sound natural cork closes behind it. Coravin says a bottle accessed this way can go on aging for years with the cork still in place.
It earns its keep on expensive bottles sold a glass at a time, on tasting pours, and on wines you want to follow as they develop. The device, the capsules and the slower pour are all part of what that glass costs you. On a rare bottle, those costs can be small next to the value of the wine you’re protecting. For a house wine that’ll be gone in two services, it’s a tuxedo at a beach barbecue.
Coravin Pivot for Bottles You’ll Finish Within Weeks
With Pivot, you open the bottle and replace the closure with a special stopper. Argon goes in as the wine pours out. Coravin says it can preserve an opened bottle for about four weeks. I’ve found it as dependable as Timeless, and it’s handier with screw caps and synthetic corks because you use the Pivot stopper every time.
Capsules are part of the cost of every protected pour. On a bottle that sells through the same night, there’s little time for that extra protection to earn its keep. On a better bottle that sells slowly, two glasses you can still sell next week can more than cover the gas.
Private Preserve and the Two Nights We’re Dark
Private Preserve is a can of argon, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. You pour as usual, spray the gas into the bottle, recork it at once and store it upright. The gas displaces some of the air above the wine. The manufacturer recommends treating the bottle every time you pour and put it away. If a bottle stays in active use through dinner, I’d try treating it when we put it away at the end of service.
Private Preserve looks well suited to the way we pour wine at Arden. We’re open five nights in a row and closed for two. We usually pour every wine on the by-the-glass list at every service, so the longest routine gap is the two nights we’re dark. I need Sunday’s open bottles to pour well on Wednesday, at a cost I can live with across the whole list.
Say a can costs $12 and gives 120 applications. That’s 10 cents each. Treat ten open bottles at the end of the night and I’ve spent a dollar. If that dollar helps me sell one more $15 glass, I’m $14 ahead, with the wine already paid for. Those are illustrative figures. At Arden, I’ll go by what we pay for the can, how many bottles we can treat with it, and whether the wines we opened on Sunday still taste good enough to serve on Wednesday.
Sparkling Wine Is a Different Problem
With still wine, I’m trying to limit exposure to oxygen. With sparkling wine, I also have to keep the bubbles. The Coravin Sparkling system uses carbon dioxide. A locking stopper seals the bottle and the charger restores the pressure above the wine. Coravin says the system can preserve sparkling wine for about four weeks.
I used it to pour Louis Roederer Cristal by the glass, and it worked. The system gave me more time to sell the bottle, but the guests still had to want it. I’ve told that story in The Sparkling Secret to Keeping the Bubbles Alive.
Preservation buys time to sell a bottle. It has never sold one.
The Less Expensive Methods Still Have a Place
A good stopper and a refrigerator may be all a bottle needs if it’ll sell tomorrow night. A vacuum pump pulls out some of the air above the wine. Pouring the remainder into a smaller clean bottle leaves less room for air, though it’s an awkward job in a working restaurant.
One list can use several methods. The everyday pours may need a secure closure, the cooler and, if they have to sit a little longer, inexpensive gas. The slower premium bottle may earn its place under Pivot. A rare bottle I plan to pour only occasionally can stay under cork with Coravin Timeless, and the Champagne gets a system built to hold pressure.
Preservation Is an Inventory Decision
Preservation can help you offer more wines by the glass. But if the number of glasses you sell stays the same while you double the number of open bottles, you’ve spread those sales across more aging wine.
I start with a list short enough that every open bottle earns its place. Mark when each bottle was opened and taste it before service. Write down what gets poured out, what that wine cost, and what you spent trying to keep it fresh. Over a few weeks, you’ll see which bottles need more protection and which ones you may want to stop pouring by the glass.
The best system earns its keep in the glasses you sell and the wine you stop pouring down the drain.
