Wine Squirrel Preservation and QikVin

Or is this thing pretty awesome!?! I’m a big Coravin fan as my wife is choosing not to drink right now, but since that only works (reliably) on ‘newer’ wines with solid corks (20 year old bottles is roughly where I draw the line), I’ve been looking for a preservation option for wines where I pop the cork immediately.

I was originally going to give the Eto a shot as it looks pretty and seems easy to use, but the reviews have been hit/miss. I stumbled across the Wine Squirrel, and while it’s definitley not as nice to look at, the feedback looked pretty good so I figured I’d give it a shot (it’s only money, right). I have to say, I am VERY impressed! A simple design where you essentially lower a rubber stopper into the decanter and twist once its submerged under the wine so that it expands and creates an air-tight seal (check out the pics - you can literally turn it upside down). Pour the excess wine out into your glass and you’re good to go! I’ve tested a 40 year old wine and a 5 year old wine under the Squirrel for a week and a half and they both tasted great! Virtually no sign of oxidation (and I’m pretty sensitive to it).

I’m sure screw cap 375ml bottles filled to the brim would work just as well…but that seems like too much work. Plus, I’m a sucker for wine related gadgets.

Has anyone else tried the Wine Squirrel??
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Nice (and nice storage)—how much do they run? I have a Coravin, which I like a lot, but I agree with you about its limitations.

Thanks!

It was $80 on Amazon. I figured I’ve wasted more money on worse things when it comes to wine…but I’ve been very impressed so far!

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Let’s hope it doesn’t live up to its namesake.

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Looks promising, though I’m skeptical of gadgets that rely on a plug or seal in contact with the wine. Even if the plug fully inert, over time my worry is that wear reduces the efficacy of the seal or the mechanism that induces the seal.

After loosely following the whole discussion on Boston rounds, I am taking a similar approach to what is outlined there, but with swing top bottles. The 250 mL versions hold about a glass and a half, which is about what I like as a single serving. I use my wine funnel (it has a screen for filtering sediment), split 2/3 of the bottle into a pair of swing tops, and have the other 1/3 immediately.

I’m mildly concerned by the oxygen introduced when pouring, but thus far I’ve been pleased with the result when storing upright at cellar temp. Young and/or robust wines hold up well, there is no head space to lose volatile aromatics into*, and only each ‘single serve’ bottle gets exposed to air when having the next glass.

In any case, I’m expanding to 125 mL and 375 mL swing tops to provide a few more options for splitting up bottles.

*This is my major concern with inert gas (Corazin) or vacuum based systems. Oxidation is prevented, but the partial pressure of all of the compounds that express the complex aromatics of the wine starts at zero. So they leave wine, though are trapped in the bottle head space. This is not an experiment I’ve performed, but my expectation is the first and last glasses are equally fresh, but the last could be attenuated on the nose.

Nice work Greg - I can see that working really well! I’m just so damn lazy that the whole funneling thing into multiple bottles seems like too much work, ha!

If you do want to try something different, I really have been happy with the squirell so far on both young and older wine

[cheers.gif]

Is the rubber stopper truly odorless? Have you used it enough to tell if it eventually absorb odors and passes them to the wine?

And can’t they give it a different name?

Ha ha! I hear ya on the name. I actually thought twice about purchasing because of it.

And great question on the rubber stopper. I haven’t noticed any issues at all but admittedly have only tried it a few times so far. When I smell the stopper by itself, im not getting any hints of rubber…but I’ll be sure to report back after using it some more [cheers.gif]

If it works as promised, it’s ingenious! You aren’t limited to a fixed amount of wine to preserve the way you are with 125/250/375 ml smaller bottles, and if you feel like just a touch more, I would guess you can loosen, push it down a little further, tighten and pour off the amount you want without exposing the remaining wine to more oxygen.

Yep, exactly! Very versatile and super easy to use. As I mentioned, I was cautiously optimistic when I first purchased…but it (so far) has far exceeded my expectations, even on older wine!

I like your wine cellar btw!

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Thanks man - appreciate it!

It’s basically a scaled down version of a variable volume stainless steel. (Those have a rubber gasket, btw. Like an inner tube. You lower the lid to the wine, then inflate to create an air tight seal.) Great concept. My only concern would be oxygen exposure in the transfer of older wines. But, that’s no different than going into smaller bottles, and it might be easier to do gently with this.

Some of the amazon reviews say the seal durability isn’t great, and it’s held to the handle with a magnet which sometimes falls off and creates a mess. Have you had any of these issues?

I agree this otherwise seems like an interesting idea to preserve exactly what you need, instead of what a certain size bottle will hold.

So far so good! Seal has been great and I could still tilt it upside-down without anything leaking at all even after a week and a few days.

And yep, the handle is connected with a magnet but it seems to work well. Plus, i don’t see that as much of an issue since I haven’t needed to use the handle other than to seal/un-seal. Its actually kind of nice that you can pull the handle out for storage purposes once its sealed.

OK, you got me. I bought it. Haven’t tried it yet, but it seems nifty. The idea is great, and if it works as designed I will appreciate not having to decant into smaller bottles to preserve older bottles that I open. (For younger bottles I will likely still use the Coravin.)

Nice!! I can’t wait to hear what you think! And I’m 100% with - Coravin for younger bottles and the Squirrel for older ones. That’s the move here at our house [cheers.gif]

That’s exactly how a Variable Capacity wine tank works in the winery and how most stainless steel wine is finished. You fill the tank with wine to whatever level, then float the lid on top of the wine and then pump up the seal to seal it off. Works well. However, you will almost always find (due to temperature expansion), some seepage on top of lid in VC tanks. I’m assuming the same could happen here. The more even the temperature, the less chance of that, most likely.

1st test: 1996 Grand Puy Lacoste. Poured a glass each over about 30 hours, and last glass was just as good as the first. Overall I’m happy so far with 2 small negatives:

  • The seal device is essentially almost submerged when you start sealing the wine, so if you’re removing to just pour a glass and re-seal it can drip a bit. A tad messy.
  • The seal doesn’t go to the bottom of the decanter. There’s at least a glass left, so you can’t preserve less than a good sized glass (~5oz? I didn’t measure…). Seems like they could have made this effective at even smaller quantities if the seal arm was just a bit longer.

Also it’s more expensive than it should be. But it doesn’t have consumables and I’m still fairly happy with it so far.

Those are two great call outs! You have to submege the seal before tightening it, so you have to plan on pouring out a little bit into your glass after you seal it. And I completely agree on the seal not going all the way to the bottom - no idea why they made it that way.

But glad to hear you’re mostly happy with it so far! As you mentioned, it does seem to preserve an open bottle really well, which is obviously the key aspect [cheers.gif]