The Truth About Wine & Oxygen

Have you wondered whether oxygen is good or bad for wine?

You probably heard that one needs to let wine breath before serving, but you might have also heard that wine left uncorked for too long will go bad. So which is it? Is oxygen good or bad for wine? The answer is — it depends.

I use a banana to explain how it all works. Wine is a fruit, so it makes perfect sense. Picking a banana off the tree is not so different from opening a bottle of wine. The wine continues to develop and change over time as it is exposed to air just as the taste of the banana changes over time once picked.

A fresh banana plucked off a tree is green. It slowly turns yellow; then yellow with brown spots; then eventually all brown; and eventually it turns black. Some people like their bananas with lots of brown spots; some prefer their bananas with no brown spots. Some prefer their bananas a bit green. Just as air ages a banana, exposure to air also ages wine.

Wine served without enough breathing time can be compared to eating a green banana. But too much oxygen exposure can turn your wine into a black banana.

Here is a pro-tip: with wine you can control the process. All you need are a couple of useful and inexpensive tools. A wine aerator and a wine preserver. At Vampire.com we offer both accessories. Our favorite wine aerator is called the Nuance. It’s small, portable and easy to use.

Our favorite wine preserver is the VACU VIN system. It’s relatively inexpensive, and it works — preserving an opened bottle of wine for a few extra days.

While we’re talking about preserving wine, ever wonder why a bottle of opened white wine tends to last longer without spoiling than an opened bottle of red wine? One clue is most people store their white wines in a refrigerator but don’t do so with a red wine. The cold air slows down the oxygenation process with wine as with anything else. That’s another reason to store wine in cool dark climate. Warm hot weather speeds up the eventual oxygenation process. Remember wine is a living liquid. Like all living things, it will age. So keep your wine stored in a cool environment.

Lastly, it’s not just vampires that don’t like light. Store your wine away from sunlight too.... It can suck the life right out of your wine.

Cheers!

The Count at the Vampire Vineyards