Is coping with leftovers adequate excuse for the difficulty in finding a restaurant
with a decent range of wine by the glass? Angela Lloyd looks at one Cape Town restaurant's solution, and tests it and a few other options – also relevant for that unfinished bottle at home.

What is going on when conservative Americans legalise wine ‘doggy bags’, permitting diners-out to take home half-emptied bottles, and the French are exhorted to ‘drink less but better’?

Undoubtedly, concerns about health and drinking and driving inspire such unlikely happenings. Opening that second bottle of wine (or even finishing the first) is now a rarer occurence. Hence the New York change of heart – though those open bottles will have to be carried home in the car boot rather than on the front seat, tempting the driver!

At first glance, the situation appears to offer opportunities rather than threats. What better time for restaurants to offer a range of wines by the glass or for producers to use half bottles (375ml) or 187ml dinkies? The first idea still seems to petrify most local eateries into imagining they’ll suffer huge wastage. The second founders when producers, especially smaller ones, run up against the high costs (and effort? or is it image?) of packaging in smaller bottles. A new cheap dinkie range, called Simply Yours, was launched in London this year, but more to lower the level of the vin très ordinaire wine lake than raise the quality offered to winelovers in a single-serve size.

So, for the time being, it looks as though it’s generally 750ml or nothing.

The good news is that leftover wine isn’t going to die from excess oxygen overnight, or even over a day or two: indeed, some younger wines might benefit from being opened for this long. As much depends on the wines themselves as how they are re-closed.

We explored how various methods of re-closure affect the wine, with the professional assistance of Belthazar Wine Bar. We used four bottles each of two white and two red wines; one red and one white were in a more elegant style, the others bigger and more obviously oaked. On the assumption that most bottles will be finished within three days, three of the four bottles were opened two and a half days before the tasting. A third of the wine was removed, and the bottles re-closed using three different systems: two of them aim to reduce oxidation: Belthazar’s much vaunted system by replacing the air with nitrogen (see box), and the widely used Vacu-vin which pumps out at least some of the air; the third method was to merely re-insert the cork. The white wines were stored at 4-6ºC, the reds at 16-18ºC. The fourth bottle was opened just before the tasting.

One-off tastings of this kind rarely allow for neat conclusions. This one had comforting moments of positive correlation among the five tasters as regards the two white wines, though only tenuously so for the reds. Christian Eedes was surprised at how different each sample was – the white wines seeming particularly to show variation. As he said, the fine Riedel glasses probably highlighted nuances of aroma and flavour.

As one would hope, the Mulderbosch Steen op Hout 2003 closed under nitrogen and the newly opened bottle performed on a par, in this case proving the tasters preferred the wine with minimal aeration. On the other hand, the bolder, more obviously oaky Rijks Chardonnay 2002 would seem to benefit from some oxygen take up. Both Kim Maxwell and Ingrid Motteux found, however, that the fruit and oak separated the longer the wine was in the glass. Jonathan Steyn made a similar point about The Ridge Syrah, remarking that the American oak vanillins strengthened as the wine warmed up and aerated, once poured. We all agreed that exposing a wine to oxygen would not rectify any imbalance between oak and fruit - and can even make it worse.

The difference between a freshly opened bottle and one allowed some aeration can be so radical as to lead to acceptance or rejection of the wine. Kim and Ingrid definitely preferred the Porcupine Ridge Syrah with exposure to oxygen, in this case the bottle re-closed with the cork; in those samples where the oxygen had been expunged, they found the prominent shiraz aromas unattractively exaggerated. Frank has also had experience in his restaurant of diners enjoying wine from the same bottle – but two days apart: ‘they had a similar reaction while experiencing a completely different taste!’

In some cases, acceptance can depend on the closure itself: Ingrid, who often favoured the newly opened wine, always put those that had been under nitrogen among her least preferred. Gary Baumgarten, MD of Graham Beck and thoroughly versed in wine chemistry, suggests this could be because of an unusual sensitivity to a wine being sparged with nitrogen or held under pressure (one bar, with the Belthazar system).

The Vacu-vin produced varied results; on some bottles, its seal might have become less effective over the two and a half days the wine was opened. Belthazar is successful with the Vacu-vin but only uses it on everyday drinking wines, where a bottle is usually finished within two days. However, some reports on tests to measure the gadget’s effects claim it also strips wine of aromas. ‘The low vapor pressure of the vacuum causes the volatile compounds in the wine to evaporate. The nose disappears almost immediately’ found the US Brentwood Wine Company. Australian wine critic, Jeremy Oliver advises that trials carried out by Adelaide University in the 1990s came up with similar results, confirming that it is better to simply replace the original cork. But don’t throw the gadget away yet; Oliver also reveals that ‘Although the Vacu-vin can only ever produce a 67% vacuum anyway, the pumps are ideal for getting rid of the bubbles from wines bottled with too much carbon dioxide.’ Robin Garr, on www. wineloverspage.com, notes that in blind tastings ‘most people can’t detect any improvement in wines stored this way against wines simply left in the original bottle without any treatment’ - although some of our results did not confirm this experience.

The question of decanting – a controversial subject on its own – also relates to our topic. As an adjunct to our experiment, Jonathan had poured a bottle of the Ridge Syrah into a Riedel decanter some six hours earlier. It was fascinating to learn we preferred this sample to all of the other four!

If the sample closed with nitrogen here was the least liked, it is also interesting to note the less than convincing performance throughout of this method. Had our tests been run after the bottles had been left open for longer, Belthazar’s system would have come into its own. Its point, after all, is to preserve leftovers for an extended period, making it viable to offer customers a wide selection of wines by the glass.

The limitations of our experiment meant that the results might even be turned on their head with other wines. The amount of wine remaining in the bottle would also be relevant. As Kim pointed out, in our test, enough remained to favour the wine staying in good shape for longer. She also passed on her father’s answer to dealing with leftovers – pouring it into airline 187ml screwcap bottles, thus reducing available oxygen. I have another suggestion for everyday whites or reds. If you are worried your leftover might be getting a little tired, there’s no harm in refreshing it with whatever you open for the next evening’s meal. The purists might shake their heads, but why not, for unambitious wines at least?

A question of 750ml bottle or nothing? Rather a question of 750ml and plenty of options to preserve the rest as you enjoy it. But please do keep encouraging restaurants to serve good wine by the glass.