Can I age wine in a half full demijohn?

[GabrielKnight]

Assuming a bung is firmly in the top so that no new air can get in, will a large headspace be a problem if I want to age my wine for a few months / years?

[jmc]

You might get away with it if you ensure demijohn was full of CO2 before you rack wine in there. If you cant do this its likely to oxidise or worse I'm afraid.

1/2 gallon demijohns / 'growlers' can be bought full of Weston's scrumpy!

[Dr. Dextrin]

It's very hard to stop oxygen diffusing in around the stopper. With a large surface area of wine, it will almost certainly suffer. I speak from experience.

I hear it's possible to bulk the wine out with (say) glass marbles to get the jar full, but I've never tried it. I think cleaning them afterwards might be a pain too.

[GabrielKnight]

Thanks for the replies. That's what I expected but thought I'd make sure.
What about the 2 - 3 weeks between main fermentation and bottling when the fining takes place. Does a large headroom matter there?

Btw, how would you reseal a Weston's scrumpy bottle?

[Dr. Dextrin]

You might get away with 2-3 weeks in a half empty jar, although it'd be best to avoid it if possible. It probably depends a bit on the wine. A delicate white might not like that treatment, but a robust red might fare reasonably well.

[jmc]

Thanks for the replies. That's what I expected but thought I'd make sure.
What about the 2 - 3 weeks between main fermentation and bottling when the fining takes place. Does a large headroom matter there?

Btw, how would you reseal a Weston's scrumpy bottle?

I've just used a sanitised drilled cork.
Eg

The yeast starter in above pic was going strong and half full to allow yeast headroom.