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VacuVin vs. Private Preserve Yes, a few. First off, "Private Reserve" is not a "heavy" gas. It's nitrogen, which is slightly lighter than air. When you first squirt it out of the can it may be slightly heavier than air due to the temperature drop from adiabatic expansion, but it's not nominally heavier than air. Secondly, although PR is capable of doing a very acceptable job of protecting an opened bottle of wine by purging air-oxygen from the headspace of the bottle, most applications of this product that I've witnessed are woefully inadequate. It takes a really long squirt of gas to completely displace all the oxygen from an opened bottle - especially if there's appreciable headspace. Most folks I've seen give it a ~3 second squirt of gas (the stuff's expen$ive after all!) and call that good. Well, it usually isn't. If inert gas is your thing, go buy a small (~50 cu. ft.) high pressure cylinder of Argon, a regulator and a piece of rubber hose to direct the gas. You can purge a lot of bottles with that, and refills aren't nearly as costly as equivalent volume of Private Reserve. This setup has other uses as well. You can purge your Cuisinart before blenderizing a batch of pesto and it'll help retard the browning. I've used a Vac-U-Vin over the years, and AFAIC it's a reasonably good alternative for short term storage. My tests confirm that used properly, a Vac-U-Vin is capable of removing ~90% of the oxygen from an opened bottle of any size. That, plus refrigerated storage, is good for several days to a week or more with little if any degradation of quality of the wine. Delicate whites may not fare so well, but big reds can actually benefit by the treatment. The *best* way of protecting opened bottles of wine is to decant the excess wine immediately (without splashing) into small, screw-capped bottles that you can fill brim-full and seal tightly. Wine stored thusly will keep for months - maybe even years - with no need for refrigeration. Cellar temperature is just fine. Tom S
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