I’ve noticed during my Internet travels on winemaking bulletin boards and newsgroups that there are many questions about degassing wine. Questions I’ve had myself. I know that before I picked up my “Fixx-X” tool, I would spend copious amounts of time, stirring my wines to degass them.

And I would stir vigorously, as all the instructions and books say to do. Once, I even broke my long handled plastic spoon during a vigourous stirring session. Believe me, I’d rather have vigorous sessions involving other things than stirring with a spoon! As well, my poor old rotatar cuffs in my shoulders don’t like such vigorous stirring.

Tonight, I borrowed a vacuum pump from Winemakers. Bob was kind enough to let me take his home for the evening and try some experiments. First, he showed me how it worked, and I was impressed with how much CO2 this device would take out of wine. On one particular wine that was started about three weeks ago in his shop, the bubbling to the top was so much he had to turn it off quickly in case the foam that was created would escape into the tube.

Yesterday, I spent some time “degassing” a couple of my wines with a Fizz-X tool, and looked forward to using the vacuum pump to finish the job. But what I observed has me wondering if indeed I’ve needed to be so concerned as I have been in the past.

This evening, I attached the plastic cap to the carboy and turned on the pump. I expected to see lots of CO2 bubbles being pulled out of the wine, but to my surprise, there was nothing. This is a wine that just yesterday, as I used the Fizz-X tool, brought all sorts of foam to the surface.

So, to make sure it was working correctly, I used the vacuum on another wine that was only three weeks old – and sure enough, lots of bubbles began to come up through the wine to the top as the vacuum pulled out the CO2 gas.

I then tried the pump on a Riesling that was started back on October 3rd – over 8 weeks ago and which I spent very little time trying to manually degass. I have two carboys – a 19 litre and a 23 litre. The 19 litre passed no gas, while the 23 litre passed neglible amounts – some tiny bubbles would come to the surface but nothing much to be concerned about. With that in mind, I’m thinking I just might remove the airlocks all together and seal the carboys for further ageing.

So, what is it exactly that causes all that foam and the appearance of bubbles rising when we think we are degassing wine? I’m starting to be of the opinion that in fact, what we might be doing is introducing some air into the wine while stirring or using the Fixx-X tool. Not that degassing shouldn’t be done – but perhaps we are a bit too concerned after a wine has sat for four weeks, and when we go to stir, and see all those bubbles and foam, it’s tricking us into believing there remains high content of CO2.

Maybe the wine is simply passing the air we’re introducing, and doesn’t really have the gas we think it has. Sort of like the difference between a human farting or burping. What do you think?

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