A bottle of wine will either be finished in one night, or languish on your countertop for weeks on end — that is, if your drinking habits are anything like ours. Sure, it may not be frequent that you have an open bottle in your household for more than a few hours, when those occasions do arise, you need a decent way to ensure that your wine stays decent. Enter the Zos wine saver, the kitchen appliance that you may not want, but that you need (for your liver’s sake).
Promising to remove 100 percent of the oxygen in an opened bottle of wine so that it can be enjoyed even weeks or months after it’s first been opened, the Zos won’t let you say that you just have to finish those last few glasses because your wine will otherwise turn to vinegar. And that’s probably the worst, most responsible thing to have ever happened to us.
According to the Zos team, we Americans manage to pour out more than $1.5 billion worth of opened wine because it’s been sitting out, opened yet untouched, for too long. But thanks to the Zos (which stands for Zero Oxygen Solutions), you can stop pouring money down the drain. You can go ahead and throw away the bottle’s cork as well, since you need only to insert the Zos stopper with the attached, oxygen-absorbing cartridge into an open bottle of wine.
From there, the device promises to remove all of the oxygen that causes spoilage in just a matter of minutes. What’s more, these oxygen-absorbing cartridges purport to last for about 10 bottles, and you’ll know when they need replacing because the companion display stand will turn red, rather than continue to glow green.
But wait, you say, don’t I eliminate oxygen from my bottle of wine with a vacuum pump? As per the Zos team, not entirely. And even if you’re getting rid of 99 percent of the oxygen in your vino (and let’s be honest, how many times do you really pump that vacuum?), any exposure to air begins the oxidation process, which changes the taste of the wine. Zos, however, makes the bold claim of being the only solution to remove all oxygen so that wine tastes and smells the way it did when you first cracked it open.
“ZOS is ideal for anyone who enjoys a single glass of wine, likes to open more than one varietal to complement a meal, or those who simply don’t want to over indulge,” said ZOS COO, Greta Mowry. “With ZOS, you no longer have to feel guilty about opening a bottle to enjoy only a glass or two because effectively saving your wine for weeks or even months [depending on storage conditions] is now as easy as inserting a ZOS stopper into the bottle.”
You can now check out a Zos wine saver kit, which comes complete with an airtight bottle stopper, the all-important oxygen-absorbing cartridge, and the countertop electronic cartridge tester and storage case, all for $60. Additional cartridges and stoppers can be purchased separately.
