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The consequences of heavy drinking are well documented：failing health，broken marriages，regrettable late-night phone calls.But according to Gregory Luzaich’s calculations，there can be a downside to modest drinking，too—though one that damages the wallet，not the liver.
The Pek Wine Steward prevents wine from spoiling by injecting argon，an inert gas，into the bottle before sealing it airtight with silicon.Mr.Luzaich，a mechanical engineer in Windsor，Calif—in the Sonoma County wine country—first tallied the costs of his reasonable consumption in October 2001.’I’d like to come home in the evening and have a glass of wine with dinner’，he said.’My wife doesn’t drink very much.so the bottle wouldn’t get consumed.And maybe I would forget about it the next day，and I’d check back a day or two later，and the wine would be spoiled’.That meant he was wasting most of a $15to $20bottle of wine dozens of times a year.
A cheek of the wine-preservation gadgets on the market left Mr.Luzaich dissatisfied High-end wine cabinets cost thousands of dollars—a huge investment for a glass-a-day drinker.Affordable preservers，meanwhile，didn’t quite perform.to Mr.Luzaich’s liking；be thought they allowed too much oxidation，which degrades the taste of a wine.
The solution，he decided，was a better gas.Many preservers pumped nitrogen into an opened bottle to slow a wine’s decline，even though oenological literature suggested that argon was more effective.So when he began designing the Pek Wine Steward，a metal cone into which a wine bottle is inserted，Mr.Luzaich found that his main challenge was to figure out how best to introduce the argon.
He spent months fine-tuning a gas injection system.’We used computational fluid dynamics to model the gas flow’，Mr.Luzaich said，referring to a computer-analysis technique that measures how smoothly particles are flowing.The goal was to create an injector that could swap a bottle’s oxygen atoms for argon atoms；argon is an inert gas，and thus unlikely to harm a nice Chianti.
Mr.Luzaich，who had previously designed medical and telecommunications products，also worked on creating an airtight seal，to secure the bottle after the argon was injected.He experimented with several substances，from neoprene to a visco-elastic polymer （which he dismissed as ’too gooey’），before settling on a food-grade silicon.
To save wine，a bottle is placed inside the Pek Wine Steward，the top is closed，and a trigger is pulled for 5to 10seconds，depending on how much wine remains.When the trigger is released，the bottle is sealed automatically，preserving the wine for a week or more.The company says.’We wanted to make it very easy for the consumer’，Mr.Luzaich said.’It’s basically mindless’.
The device，which resembles a high-tech thermos，first became available to consumers in March 2004，and 8，000to 10，000have been sold，primarily through catalogs like those of The Wine Enthusiast and Hammacher Schlemmer The base model sells for $99；a deluxe model，which also includes a thermoelectric cooler，is $199.