PulltexPWC Antiox 6 Units

Review of Pulltex AntiOx stopper:I bought a couple of these a month ago. The packaging states that these stoppers will preserve all the organoleptic characteristics of the wine for up to 10 days. They sound great in theory and should save on buying wine preserver gas, which I had been using.I decided to try an experiment to see if they worked. Taking four bottles of identical white wine, I poured out 200 ml of each of three bottles and left them exposed to the air for 30 minutes. These were then stoppered with (i) the AntiOx stopper (ii) a cork and (iii) a cork with wine preserve gas and refrigerated, upright, with the fourth unopened bottle at the back of the fridge.Before tasting a week later, all four bottles were removed from the refrigerator. The unopened bottle was opened and 200ml was removed. All four wines were blind tasted. There were three tasters, one with 30+ years of tasting fine wine, another who was completing her studies for her WSET level 3 and one other. Each independently voted for each wine. The outcome was: the new bottle and the bottle that had been stored with the wine preserver gas were rated as the best and very similar (interestingly the bottle with the gas slightly better than the newly opened bottle). The bottle with the cork (no gas) and the AntiOx had lost most of their bouquet, had increased acidity and had lost most of the fruit. These were not unpleasant, but they were not well preserved and very similar (i.e. the AntiOx stopper had made no difference).Dismantling the insides of the stopper reveals what looks like a charcoal pellet in the plastic mesh. I showed the AntiOx stopper to colleagues with PhDs in chemistry, who questioned the science of oxygen atoms combining with carbon (to form CO2) without heat, as is shown on the packaging. The packaging has a number of errors (e.g. chemical symbol for oxygen) and there are claims of a patented method, but no patent number (or what part of the stopper is patented). Overall I can’t recommend this stopper.

By using Pulltex wine bottle sealers I now feel at complete ease when keeping a partly full bottle of wine for a number of days.