In the world of wine, oxygen is both your friend and your enemy. Wines are decanted or aerated so that friendly oxygen can slip into your wine in small doses. The oxygen, in effect, allows your wine to breathe and release newly developed aromas and flavors.

Oxygen is your enemy when you let an open bottle of wine sit on the counter and heavy doses of oxygen attack the wine, stripping it of its essences. Everything in moderation.

Find oxygen-related tools like decanters, aerators and preservation tools at WineEnthusiast.com. 

Where do these products come from? It all starts with an idea. Very often the idea is from customers who chat with our wine cellar design specialists, communicating products they’d like to see. Our Wine Enthusiast Design team then sees if the idea can come to fruition by working with our team of engineers and developing a prototype. An example of one such development is the Vino View, our now popular Wine Display Refrigerator.

Our customers described the appeal of showcasing the artful labels adorned on their wine bottles. The problem with most wine storage units is the wines are laid down on their side, so they can properly age. Though this is healthy storage for aging, bottles may be kept upright if you plan on drinking them soon. So why not show off their beautiful labels? We designed the VinoView with a special convex door to hold bottles of wine or for optional preservation systems. We enhanced it with special lighting and kept it small and affordable so it suits any sized home. A star product was born!

It is fascinating how many unique ideas we hear from customers every day. What products would you like our Wine Enthusiast Design Team to test out? Tell us what you’d like to see more of, and perhaps we can make that dream a reality. Leave a comment, and let us know!

Don’t believe us? SoWine’s been reviewed by Gizmodo (“Represents a significant improvement” in wine preservation) and C|net (“The SoWine Bar from EuroCave solves the dilemma…red wine or white, don’t hesitate to open both”). And we expect more to come as we enter the holiday gifting season.

Wine Enthusiast literally cannot keep these on our warehouse shelves, they fly out of here as fast as they arrive. SoWine is sure to be THE hot product for all wine lovers this Holiday season. But what are you waiting for, pick one up between now and August 11th and we’ll ship it free.

Watch our video demo and see how this amazing new product works:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Wine can only take so much air before crying out, “mercy!” A half-hour of air exposure for an old wine or a few hours for a young tannic red can help a wine express itself. However, longer periods of time begin to damage the wine. As oxygen starts to integrate with the wine, it expands the chemical compounds, called phenolics, that give your wine its unique character. A small amount of air opens them up, while air exposure over a long period of time causes the compounds to spread apart and dissipate. The wine will lose all of its wonderful aromas and flavors and ultimately turn sour. This is where preservation comes in.

An unfinished bottle of wine has empty space in it which fills up with air that begins to change your wine. If you’d like to keep your wine fresh for a few extra days, preservation is a method of sucking the air out of the empty space so that less oxygen gets to your wine. There are plenty of preservation tools, in all shapes and sizes.

My personal favorite is the traditional Vacu Vin Vacuum wine saver. It’s a small accessory that you can keep in your kitchen drawer. You simply place the Vacu Vin atop the bottle of wine and give it a few pumps until the oxygen is sucked out. You reseal the bottle with the stoppers provided. Use of the Vacu Vin will buy you many more days of fresh, drinkable wine. A Vacu Vin is essential if you plan on sampling more wine than you can drink in a night, or for any budding enthusiast.

Another option is to add an inert gas like nitrogen or argon which forces the air out. Don’t worry, the gas won’t harm your wine. Many large wine dispenser systems you see in restaurants and wine bars utilize this method. Our Private Preserve is a great example of this type of tool, as is the PEK Wine Steward and the Winekeeper.

Check out this video as an example, it brings the Private Preserve to life.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you’re not ready for a preservation tool, you can pop your wine in the refrigerator, if only kept for a few days. The temperature will slow down the oxidation process. You can even do this for red wines. To maximize my preservation power, I typically use my Vacu Vin and the refrigerator as well. Folks looks at me like I’m crazy sometimes, but it works! Just be sure to let your red wine come back up to temperature before serving.

I hope these tips will serve you well to maximize your own Preservation Power. What are some of your favorite methods? Leave a comment!