As Frederick says below, "Air is compressible, liquids are not." Air
is also expandable, which means that the removal of the cork when
you're ready to drink is a lot easier with a little air space between
the wine and the cork.

Rob

Good point. No idea how Andie is going to get those corks back
out unless he drills a small hole down through the cork to provide
an "airway" to let in some air while pulling the corks. Interesting
problem............ ;o)

Frederick

On Mar 13, 6:36*am, "frederick ploegman"
wrote:
As Frederick says below, "Air is compressible, liquids are not." *Air
is also expandable, which means that the removal of the cork when
you're ready to drink is a lot easier with a little air space between
the wine and the cork.

Rob

Good point. *No idea how Andie is going to get those corks back
out unless he drills a small hole down through the cork to provide
an "airway" to let in some air while pulling the corks. *Interesting
problem............ *;o)

* * * * Frederick

Does anyone fill the bottle ullage with inert gas?
I have about 15 gallons to bottle in about 90 days, and plan to top
them all off with argon.

Wayne Harris wrote:

On Mar 13, 6:36*am, "frederick ploegman"
wrote:
As Frederick says below, "Air is compressible,
liquids are not." *Air is also expandable,
which means that the removal of the cork when
you're ready to drink is a lot easier with a
little air space between the wine and the cork.

Rob

Good point. *No idea how Andie is going to get
those corks back out unless he drills a small
hole down through the cork to provide an
"airway" to let in some air while pulling the
corks. *Interesting problem............ *;o)

Frederick

Does anyone fill the bottle ullage with inert
gas? I have about 15 gallons to bottle in about
90 days, and plan to top them all off with
argon.

I know that at least some if not most commercial
wineries use Nitrogen which would be cheaper than
Argon. Argon does carry some risk if used in
very confining environments.

Does anyone fill the bottle ullage with inert
gas? I have about 15 gallons to bottle in about
90 days, and plan to top them all off with
argon.

I know that at least some if not most commercial
wineries use Nitrogen which would be cheaper than
Argon. *Argon does carry some risk if used in
very confining environments

On wines I expect to store for a while, I get one of those inert-gas
cans for wine preservation and give each bottle a shot before
corking.

Rob

Really? Do you find a difference? Anyone else do this?
Very interesting. So you shoot into the top 1/2 to 3/4 inch of space a
inert-gas shot - and cork. how do you do that? Like within a few
seconds? or once you spray, it's heavy so no hurry? or within a second?

DAve

Rob wrote:
Does anyone fill the bottle ullage with inert
gas? I have about 15 gallons to bottle in about
90 days, and plan to top them all off with
argon.
I know that at least some if not most commercial
wineries use Nitrogen which would be cheaper than
Argon. Argon does carry some risk if used in
very confining environments

On wines I expect to store for a while, I get one of those inert-gas
cans for wine preservation and give each bottle a shot before
corking.

Rob

Really? Do you find a difference? Anyone else do this?
Very interesting. So you shoot into the top 1/2 to 3/4 inch of space a
inert-gas shot - and cork. how do you do that? Like within a few
seconds? or once you spray, it's heavy so no hurry? or within a second?

I've seen a slow increase in the quality of my wine, but I've chalked
that up to learning more and more how to do things successfully (and
thanks to all of you on this board for all the help), not to the
gassing of the bottle.

I haven't done any science on this - no direct comparisons, etc. - so
I can't tell you of any particular difference I've seen. I've just
figured that the relatively less oxygen the better. Since I do wine
in carboy-size lots, I'll fill a carboy-size load of bottles (about
30), then I'll top the bottles with the inert-gas shot, then I'll
start corking. There may be a very different amount of the shot left
in the first bottle corked than the last, but in both cases to some
level I've dropped the oxygen percentage. If I had someone helping me
bottle I could do this more consistenly, but I do it by myself so this
is the most efficient way I've found to carry this out.

By the way, I also use it to blanket the top of my carboys following
taking samples, racking, etc. Again, it's not completely eliminating
oxygen, but it lowers the percentage.

Anyone else?

Rob