I'm not a kitchen-gadget guy, generally. I don't see the need for a tiny Le Creuset just to melt butter, think it's kind of ridiculous to have a thousand different kinds of knives, and my default position is that the essentials that have been around for centuries are the only ones you really need. (Except for standing mixers, food processors and Microplanes: They rock.)
But I was pretty wowed at the New York Wine Expo this weekend when I saw a product that seemed to finally justify all those years spent in chem class.
(Also, the ice-cream maker. That's fun. I'm adding that to the list of cool modern kitchen gadgets.)
It's a much cooler way than a vacuum stopper to preserve your unfinished wine.
So here's how you use it: When you can't finish off a bottle of wine, you take the VineyardFresh canister, stick the nozzle in the bottle, and give it one or two squirts. Then cork it and store the bottle upright until you want to drink the wine again.
The canister contains argon, which, as you all remember from Chem 101, is a gas that has an atomic mass of 39.948, considerably higher than oxygen, which is at 15.9994 and is the culprit behind oxidation. The argon settles directly above the liquid, forming a barrier between the wine and the air (nitrogen, the major component of air, has an atomic weight of 14.0067, by the way). You store the bottle upright so that the gaseous barrier remains intact and in place till the next pouring. And you obviously don't use it in conjunction with a vacuum sealer.
Argon's a noble gas (its outer shell of electrons has a "full" complement of eight), and thus inert ("argon" actually means "inactive" in Greek), so it doesn't react with or change the wine, and is tasteless, odorless and non-toxic. Argon's used industrially to top up and preserve items like cans of paint, and in museums and archives to store significant historical documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
It's also a relatively cheap gas, and at about $25 per two-pack (and with enough argon in each canister to preserve 50 to 55 bottles), the cost per use comes to about a quarter.
Anyway, I can't tell if I like the idea so much because it's a practical, cheap and elegantly logical way to preserve your wine, or because I've completely geeked out on the idea of using science to drink. Has anyone else tried it? Am I being suckered in by a flashy new contraption when a vacuum pump would do as well or better (and, over the long run, cost less)? Is there something here?
(I guess, technically speaking, that refrigerators, freezers and free running water and sewerage also qualify as great kitchen "gadgets.")
By Michael Y. Park
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