VacuVin Concerto 3-Piece Wine Saver Set Review

I must admit, I tend to finish what I start and a bottle of wine is no exception. But on the days when I can't finish a bottle, or use just a little for cooking, I certainly don't want to just throw out the rest. 

Exposure to oxygen ages wine and the more oxygen it is exposed to, the quicker it ages. During the aging process, the flavors will open and change, and you can have a completely different wine 48 hours after you open it, just from oxygen exposure.

More years ago than I care to admit to, I worked at a restaurant that served wine by the glass.  Great for patrons, not so great for the restaurant that is faced with the problem of that (sometimes very expensive) bottle being open and having to be dumped after three days if it wasn't completely sold.  In the restaurant, we had a large, wall-mounted oxygen removal device...can you say expensive and complicated? Very few people have either the space or money for such a system. Since then, several companies have come up with home systems and many of them didn't work and/or were still expensive.

Vacu Vin to the rescue!
The theory is simple. When the time comes to store the wine, instead of trying to replace the cork, place the pump over the stopper and move the handle up and down to remove the oxygen. Because of the design, the holes in the stopper are only open when attached to and being activated by the pump. The Concerto will make a clicking sound when you have reached the point where you can stop pumping. The stoppers are reusable and easy to clean.

How do you know it really works? That's simple - remove the stopper. If the popping of the stopper coming out of the airless bottle doesn't convince you, try opening two bottles of identical wine and try store one with the cork and the other with the Vacu Vin method and see which tastes like your original wine the next day.

Cost
$20 for the set that includes the pump, 2 stoppers and a counter stand.  Additional stoppers are available in sets of 2.

The Bottom Line
No wine will go unchanged after being opened, but using this product can easily add a day or two to a wine's life. 
Vacu Vin also makes a nice, inexpensive gift if you have wine drinkers in your life.