Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/08/26/winepump.html
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Ummmmmm, sure it is…
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Been using one for so long it wore out and replaced it.
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Pro tip: buy a couple of spare stoppers! They love getting lost in my house somehow.
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Yup, works great, and yes, get more stoppers.
What is this “saving wine” you speak of? What foul art is it that doeth deprive one of the full enjoyment of the bottle for one self in an evening?
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Can also be used to apply hickeys.
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I can’t really see the use of this. I’ve never found any wine left in the bottle.
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Oh. People think these actually work?
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Can you get stencils for it? Asking for a drunk friend…
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That’s really the crux, isn’t it? Seems like these would simple to use in a double blind tasting test. But otherwise wine tasting is highly subjective and massively prone to human bias.
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That’s what a 3d printer is for!
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I was thinking laser cutter and thin metal…but 3D printing should work, too 
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Or, one could just look at it as a replacement cork after opening. The vacuum seal is just to keep the cork in place.
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Hmm…a quick and lazy front page Google search gets me this:
[Quote]“The “Vacu-Vin” device as submitted was evaluated to determine efficacy in reduction of oxidative spoilage in opened wines. Using the protocol described above, the “Vacu-Vin” device was found to have no measurable effect in reduction of oxidative spoilage.”
-Gordon Burns, ETS Laboratories, 1204 Church Street, St. Helena, CA 94574[/quote]
Via https://johnonwine.com/2009/12/17/friends-dont-let-friends-vacu-vin/
But this single sample blinded test by a Wired writer disagrees:
In reality, that’s a whole lot of doomsaying over a stocking stuffer, and for short-term wine keeping, Vacu Vin works better than detractors claim. In fact, in my two-day test, the Vacu Vin wine earned my highest score. I couldn’t tell it apart from a fresh bottle. But things went south—way south—after a week. At the seven-day mark, the Vacu Vin wine had become extremely musty and was completely undrinkable, lending credence to some of the theories about its long-term effectiveness.
We Can Drink the Rest Tomorrow: 5 Wine Preservation Systems Tested | WIRED
Consumer Reports also tested the vacuum sealer and says don’t bother. So, the better quality the study, the less impressive the vacuum sealer is found to be.
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It’s been a while since I’ve read a vicious takedown of wine tasting. Have things cooled off over the last couple of years? The old magical magnetic doodads used to be such an easy target for any blogging skeptic.
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I always figured that there wasn’t much use for such a thing, except they make nice replacement stoppers if the original cork won’t fit back in the bottle. I do suspect that if you’re deeply concerned with keeping your wine fresh, that (a) it must be very expensive wine, and (b) you probably can afford some kind of nitrogen purging system, because obviously you love your wine as if it were a tube amp.
One thing I have noted is that when I use it on white wine, I see lots of little bubbles, which I like to pretend are the dissolved sulfite gases being expedited from the bottle.
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Mostly I’m just wondering how much air these can pump out and how much of it creeps right back in. I would be very interested to note the pressures before and after. There are other considerations as well. Like, sure you’re eliminating some of the oxygen, but you’re also vaporizing some of the wine as a statistical function of the ambient temperature, which is now mingling with what’s left of the air (no, you didn’t make a vacuum in the bottle with something you bought for a sawbuck. I’d be very surprised if the pressure was on the order of 570 Torr) in the bottle in ways it might not have otherwise. Then there’s the issue of how long it takes wine to oxidize with or without some of the air evacuated. I have a bottle right next to me that is over two weeks old left in a dark cool spot that looks and tastes perfectly serviceable. I think that the lack of light and cool location makes a lot more difference than the amount of air in your headspace.
I see a lot of different factors at play. It might be interesting to do some tests and some calculations, but I strongly suspect people are fooling themselves.
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