How long can a wine or sherry be opened for?

There is not one answer to how long a wine can remain open. An opened bottle of wine comes into contact with oxygen and this oxidizes the wine. The result: a vinegar-like smell and taste. And the more wine is out of the bottle, the faster this process goes because relatively more oxygen is added. Therefore - regardless of the type - always put an opened bottle in the refrigerator. By cooling the wine, you slow down the oxidation process and so it "spoils" less quickly.

But how long can you keep an opened bottle of wine? Or even better, how long is the wine still nice to drink because the downside is that wine with wart oxygen can also improve again, especially if the wine is still young, has a lot of acidity or a lot of sweetness and for sherry (which in fact is a oxidized wine), other rules apply. As a rule, you can keep an opened bottle of wine for two to three days. But there are differences between red, white and rosé wines.

It is best to drink an open bottle of red wine within 2 days. If it was a wine with a lot of tannin, from a good year and / or from an aristocratic family from Burgundy, Bordeaux, Barolo or Barbaresco, 3-4 days is certainly possible and you can often see that the opened bottle is correct a day later. taste better.

You can often leave white and rosé a little longer (of course also in the fridge), but here too, 3 days is the maximum

Sparkling wines are trickier. After opening, the carbon dioxide (and the bubbles) will quickly disappear. Keep this wine for a maximum of one day

Sweet white wines, on the other hand, are more resistant to aging. The taste can change slightly, but about five days will work. Fortified wines such as Port, Sherry, Madeira keep their taste and aroma for at least a month after opening.

Port wines, especially the longer ones, can also be open for a number of weeks. Even then, of course, in the fridge. The sweetness and the fact that they have already undergone a certain oxidation makes this possible. For young port wines the same applies as for red / white wines and it is possible to open a number of days, but vacuuming is certainly possible for longer.

Sherry wines and certainly those that have matured under the flor for a long time have therefore undergone a very long time of biological aging under flor. They have already been exposed to quite a bit of oxygen during that process and ensures that it remains very stable (but also keep it in the refrigerator). We also checked this with Eduardo Ojeda, the famous winemaker of the top sherry house Equipo Navazos and indicated that he sometimes has his sherry wines open for months - also for visitors to taste. Logically, the wine becomes more and more in color and evolves, but retains its character. So yes in this case it does change but just because the sherries are already oxidative it doesn't mean they just become. In contrast, after a few days they seriously oxidize (red just a little earlier than white) and thus do not taste good

How to best store wine

So if you want to keep an opened bottle, the best way is to put it in the fridge. The cold of the refrigerator slows down the oxidation process. So put the wine to be stored in the fridge anyway. In addition, there are methods that slow down the aging process. By preventing the oxygen from coming into contact with the wine.

First of all, the best-known method: removing all air in the bottle by vacuuming the bottle. This is quickly and easily possible with a special cork and pump. Place the vacumm and then put it in the refrigerator.

Another method is to buy a Coravin. This means you don't have to open the bottle. With a needle you poke through the cork and take a glass of wine from the bottle. The space in the bottle is immediately filled with Argon gas. This fills up the empty space in the bottle so that no oxygen can enter.