Camping for me is a pretty wine-intensive affair. There is lots of cooking, eating, hiking and sitting around the campfire with friends, playing music or re-telling old stories. All these activities go better with a glass or two of wine.
Multiply this fact by me, my wife and any number of camping colleagues and you’re packing a lot of bottles.
In a perfect world, my favorite producers put their wines in air-tight bags to make camping and hiking less cumbersome. Our world is less than perfect, but I have come across a product that makes lugging my wines through the woods a little easier.
As our overburdened Family Truckster can attest, I buy a lot of gear at REI, but it’s not my first stop when it comes to wine. When I saw the Platypus Platypreserve Wine Preservation System ($10, www.platypreserve.com) on display at the camping retailer, it stopped me in my tracks.
The Platypreserve was designed to prevent opened wines from turning into vinegar. The BPA-free, non-reactive plastic bag allows you to place wine inside and burp out all the air. This keeps leftover wines from going south for as long as a week.
You can also put an entire bottle of Stag’s Leap S.L.V. Cabernet Sauvignon in it and go for a hike without the hassle and weight of the bottle. This is exactly what I did with friend and fellow chef Mark Milliron during a recent family camping trip to Stone Mountain Park. Call it a reason to escape parental responsibilities for a couple hours, if you will. Our hike was purely a research mission.
I was a little concerned about filling the bag and how it would pour, but this durable little device fills easily even without a funnel. The bag stands by itself, making it easy to press down until the wine level reaches the opening, leaving no air in the bag. You then simply screw on the cap. I can report no leaks on our five-mile trek. If you support the bag with two hands, pouring was not an issue either.
More than anything, I was concerned about what the Platypreserve would do the taste and flavors of the wine. The 2008 Stag’s Leap is a big wine with lots of fruit and tannins. I tasted the wine right out of the bottle. Its aromas were hypnotic, but the tannins had a bite to them and the fruit was compacted and tight. Coming out of the bag and into our glasses -- yes, I brought my Spiegelau glassware -- about an hour later, the wine had softened to expose flavors of cassis, plum, blueberry, black cherry and dark chocolate. We saved about a glass for after our return trip.
By the time we got back to the campsite, the thoroughly complex cab had unfolded its many layers, making one happy camper exclaim: “This is the best wine I’ve ever had!”
Camping does not necessarily mean roughing it. And for those wine lovers with over-packing issues, the Platypreserve makes your burden a little lighter and, perhaps, your wine a little better.
Gil Kulers is a certified wine educator and a consultant for a metro-Atlanta wine shop. You can reach him at gil.kulers@winekulers.com.
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