Do you Slow-O/Audouze?

[alan_weinberg]

speaking of Audouze, where is he? We used to hear about the dinners he sells.

[Noah_C]

To all the “it doesn’t oxygenate the wine at all” comments, are you saying you could pull the cork of a bottle then let it sit on the counter for weeks and it would be unchanged? I find that very hard to imagine. And then if you add that you’ve poured off an ounce or two, it seems even harder to imagine.

My example is a little different, but on my first day of college P-Chem, the professor took a graduated cylinder with 1L of water in it and dropped in a small amount of a colorful soluble salt (CuSO4 maybe, can’t remember). He disturbed the liquid as little as possible, covered it with plastic wrap, and placed it in the back of the classroom. It sat there for the entire semester and only about the bottom 1cm or so of the liquid turned blue. That was over 4 months or so. It was a fantastic demonstration of how slowly solutes travel within a liquid without physical agitation.

The oxygen solubility into wine is a very similar process, albeit coming from above instead of below. In fact, solubility of oxygen into wine would probably be even slower given that only 20% of air is oxygen and the wine/air interface is only a small smooth surface, whereas the salt was completely surrounded by 100% water and was a powder, lending it more surface area. Once you pour some wine out, all bets are off, however carefully removing the cork, and letting the full bottle sit undisturbed on the counter for a few weeks probably would change the wine very little. That is, unless a fly gets in there…

There’s a big difference between oxygen entering the wine over a few hours versus years.

Exactly.

So you’d be comfortable opening a wine that’s in its maturity window, pouring off two ounces, and letting it sit on the counter upright with no cork for weeks? You don’t feel like the wine will advance and eventually go downhill doing that?

See above. I wouldn’t do that after pouring off a few ounces because of the agitation, but simply removing the cork should make little difference, at least in terms of oxygen. We have to remember that letting the wine sit on the counter for weeks does not only allow for the ingress of oxygen (very little I would expect), but also allows for the escape of volatile compounds. Leaving a bottle open for weeks might be detrimental to aroma and flavor because desirable aromatic compounds might leave, and for that reason I wouldn’t let a bottle sit for weeks, not because of oxygen per se.

[Andrew_K]

speaking of Audouze, where is he? We used to hear about the dinners he sells.

My next dinners

He’s had that one on the calendar for years. Doubt he’s ever going to actually hold it. Nobody is willing to pay however many 10s of k’s pp he’s asking.

[K_John_Joseph]

At the end of the day, I think it’s total bullshit entirely unfounded in any science. The “let something blow off” theory would similarly apply to a pop and pour, a technique much derided by the mis-named “slow-ox” crew. But the opposition is fierce, if lacking anything other than obviously biased anecdotal support for their position.

I don’t know jack about what science might be involved. But I know for a fact that the results are not “bullshit” given the many, many very old bottles I opened that had a weird funk that blew off over time, when I’ve heard of those same wines being dumped down the drain by those that just pop and pour. But you do you and I’ll do me. Via con Dios.

Like I said, one of the most contentious disputes on the forum. 880 posts. And also like I said, the opposition is fierce, if lacking anything other than obviously biased anecdotal support for their position.

[Alan_Rath]

To all the “it doesn’t oxygenate the wine at all” comments, are you saying you could pull the cork of a bottle then let it sit on the counter for weeks and it would be unchanged? I find that very hard to imagine. And then if you add that you’ve poured off an ounce or two, it seems even harder to imagine.

My example is a little different, but on my first day of college P-Chem, the professor took a graduated cylinder with 1L of water in it and dropped in a small amount of a colorful soluble salt (CuSO4 maybe, can’t remember). He disturbed the liquid as little as possible, covered it with plastic wrap, and placed it in the back of the classroom. It sat there for the entire semester and only about the bottom 1cm or so of the liquid turned blue. That was over 4 months or so. It was a fantastic demonstration of how slowly solutes travel within a liquid without physical agitation.

The oxygen solubility into wine is a very similar process, albeit coming from above instead of below. In fact, solubility of oxygen into wine would probably be even slower given that only 20% of air is oxygen and the wine/air interface is only a small smooth surface, whereas the salt was completely surrounded by 100% water and was a powder, lending it more surface area. Once you pour some wine out, all bets are off, however carefully removing the cork, and letting the full bottle sit undisturbed on the counter for a few weeks probably would change the wine very little. That is, unless a fly gets in there…

There’s a big difference between oxygen entering the wine over a few hours versus years.

Exactly.

So you’d be comfortable opening a wine that’s in its maturity window, pouring off two ounces, and letting it sit on the counter upright with no cork for weeks? You don’t feel like the wine will advance and eventually go downhill doing that?

See above. I wouldn’t do that after pouring off a few ounces because of the agitation, but simply removing the cork should make little difference, at least in terms of oxygen. We have to remember that letting the wine sit on the counter for weeks does not only allow for the ingress of oxygen (very little I would expect), but also allows for the escape of volatile compounds. Leaving a bottle open for weeks might be detrimental to aroma and flavor because desirable aromatic compounds might leave, and for that reason I wouldn’t let a bottle sit for weeks, not because of oxygen per se.

Noah, you’ll enjoy this thread. Your professor was a good teacher

Putting a stake in the heart of "slow ox"

[Alan_Rath]

At the end of the day, I think it’s total bullshit entirely unfounded in any science. The “let something blow off” theory would similarly apply to a pop and pour, a technique much derided by the mis-named “slow-ox” crew. But the opposition is fierce, if lacking anything other than obviously biased anecdotal support for their position.

I don’t know jack about what science might be involved. But I know for a fact that the results are not “bullshit” given the many, many very old bottles I opened that had a weird funk that blew off over time, when I’ve heard of those same wines being dumped down the drain by those that just pop and pour. But you do you and I’ll do me. Via con Dios.

There’s quite a chasm between the idea of slow-ox (just opening a bottle and letting it sit for hours undisturbed), and airing a wine to either oxygenate it or help unwanted volatiles escape, whether by decanting, or just pouring into a glass and swirling. I’m obviously in the camp that does not believe (or, to be more direct, knows with certainty), that slow-ox doesn’t work. But I firmly believe (actually, know with certainty, based on years of experience) that many wines benefit from aeration. It’s important to distinguish between the two methods.

[Alan_Rath]

To all the “it doesn’t oxygenate the wine at all” comments, are you saying you could pull the cork of a bottle then let it sit on the counter for weeks and it would be unchanged? I find that very hard to imagine. And then if you add that you’ve poured off an ounce or two, it seems even harder to imagine.

It seems that, as a matter of chemistry, if you just pull the cork, there is essentially no oxygen interchange. Oxygen doesn’t enter the liquid, and there is a tiny surface area.

Pouring a small quantity probably introduces a little oxygen because some air enters the bottle and the wine is disturbed, but not that much. Returning the bottle to the upright position with wine still at least up to the shoulder means there’s essentially no oxygenation after that point. (Paging Alan Rath!)

So you’d be comfortable opening a wine that’s in its maturity window, pouring off two ounces, and letting it sit on the counter upright with no cork for weeks? You don’t feel like the wine will advance and eventually go downhill doing that?

I suspect there are at least two things going on: diffusion (air in, volatiles out), and the introduction of spoilage microbes in the form of bacteria and yeast. The first will do nothing, except near the very top of the bottle. The second has the potential, over a shorter time span, to do a great deal. So the answer to your question is that you can’t just leave a wine out in the open for days and hope that it will remain pristine. Yeast and bacteria will enter, start to grow, obviously changing the wine. That’s why, I think, you can usually store an open bottle in the fridge pretty successfully - it greatly slows the growth of spoilage microbes.

[Richard_Foxall]

I suspect there are at least two things going on: diffusion (air in, volatiles out), and the introduction of spoilage microbes in the form of bacteria and yeast. The first will do nothing, except near the very top of the bottle. The second has the potential, over a shorter time span, to do a great deal. So the answer to your question is that you can’t just leave a wine out in the open for days and hope that it will remain pristine. Yeast and bacteria will enter, start to grow, obviously changing the wine. That’s why, I think, you can usually store an open bottle in the fridge pretty successfully - it greatly slows the growth of spoilage microbes.

Ding ding ding. Of course leaving a bottle on the counter, open for days will change the wine: The air is full of little beasties that will get in. Those beasties might even change the rate that oxygen and other gases are entering the wine because of their own metabolism. Also, you put that bottle in the fridge with a cork of some kind in it, right? That keeps the amount of beasties a lot lower, too.

People worry about bad corks because those wines are going to sit (usually on their sides, exposing more surface area to oxygen) for much, much longer than a couple hours, or days, or even a college semester. When the wines are stored on their sides, they are also seeping wine out which is being replaced by more air.

“Airing out” or “breathing” wine by leaving it open with no agitation and very little surface area is not going to do much of anything. Basic physics. If you are doing something more, that would explain your results. As would human suggestibility.