Few areas of human endeavor are more burdened with myth, exaggeration and misinformation than wine. Here are a few simple and effective ways to make the most of your wine-drinking experience, courtesy of beverage director and certified sommelier Kirk Peterson of B&B Hospitality Group Las Vegas.

Make that open bottle of wine last longer. Many products claim the ability to make an opened bottle of wine last longer, from pumps and argon gas to plastic disks that “shield” the surface of the wine from oxygen. Unfortunately many of these products belong in the same class as emails for ED pills and pain-relieving magnetic bracelets that end up in your spam folder.

The key to prolonging the deterioration of wine is preventing as much oxidization as possible. Once a bottle of wine is opened and exposed to oxygen, deterioration is inevitable. Products that attempt to preserve wine that has already been exposed to oxygen ignore the simple fact of chemistry that gasses dissolve into liquids, and no amount of isolation from oxygen after the fact can change the amount of oxygen that has already dissolved into the wine.