Some interesting comments here and clearly an issue that the readers of this forum are interested in.

Firstly, thank you for allowing me to participate in this discussion. I wish all forum members the very best for 2011; may it bring many good bottles, peace and prosperity (not necessarily in that order!)

Let me declare my pecuniary interest in this topic as I'm one of the principals of the wine preservation solution winesave™ - www.winesave.com - which is being released in the USA now. By the way, the founder of winesave, Daryl Davies, is a retired commercial pilot with 21,000 hours of experience, including 17 years with Pan Am. He also flew George Bush snr and Barbara down to Guatemala, and spent the last 10 years of his flying life as the private pilot and manager of a BBJ for one of the world's richest men. Daryl was inspired to find a solution to the issue of wine oxidation because as a pilot, his daily wine consumption was severely restricted and he loathed wasting good wine.

My (our) respectful suggestion to anyone concerned with preventing their opened wine from oxidising is to use a gaseous solution which is pure 100% argon. This is because argon is a completely inert atomic gas and the heaviest of all gases (as per the periodic table). Being inert it will not combine with the wine unlike other gases such as nitrogen or "pea-soups" of nitrogen/argon etc. As argon is 2.5 x the weight of air, when sparged into the bottle, the air is displaced by the heavier argon, which sinks in the bottle until it hits something heavier - the remaining wine. Then the argon simply sits on top of the surface area of the wine and forms a protective barrier between the wine and the oxygen/air in the bottle's headspace.

For readers who would like to dig a little deeper into wine preservation, I'd recommend the following linked article which is the best of its type I've come across: http://bit.ly/c0IgNH.

Originally published in the Asia Sentinel, it has been written by Curtis Marsh who is one of Asia's leading wine commentators.

In respect of pumps, its been my experience and clearly that of others as well (read http://bit.ly/fWMYrW ) that pumps - simple or complex - are not as effective at extracting sufficient oxygen from the headspace to make a difference, as perhaps was thought at the time of their release. There is also the negative effect with them of removing some of the (desirable) soluble aromatics from the wine, thus in the words of some wine professionals leaving the wine "clipped" or "scalped".

Our product, winesave™, is used in some of the world's leading restaurants to protect their wines served by the glass from oxidising. We believe that the simplicity and convenience of winesave™ makes the benefits of professional standard wine preservation available to any consumer, restaurant, cellar door etc without needing to buy any proprietary hardware. I now normally have 6 or more wines at home available "by the glass" without having to worry about wastage.

I"ll be delighted to endeavour to answer any questions subsequently posted. And should any readers of this forum decide to try winesave™ and are not happy with its performance, I'll refund your money no questions asked.

Again, the very best for 2011,
Frank