Wine storage - How important is it to do right?
Thursday, February 28th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
Many people who enjoy wine on a regular basis may not fully understand just how important it is to properly store wine. With the rich complexities of wine it is imperative to store it properly or risk losing some of the wonderful subtleties that it contains. Care must be taken because wine does not last forever it does in fact have a fixed shelf life. With the proper care the shelf life of a bottle of wine can be greatly extended. This is defiantly something to keep in mind when you start to think about just how expensive some wine can be.
Basic information on wine storage
The biggest and most important rule about wine storage is that wine likes the dark, wine also likes cool temperatures. Ideally wine should be stored in a dark wine cellar at about 55 degrees fahrenheit with a relative humidity of about 80%.
Wine has classically been stored in wine cellars. That worked well in the past when people had houses with cellars, It may be slightly more difficult to find an apartment in say New York City with a cellar.
Technology has come to the rescue of people who don’t have ready access to a safe stable cellar though. You can pick up a small refrigerator designed to store wine, they do a really good job of keeping the temperature and humidity constant. There are literally hundreds if not thousands to chose from, ranging in size from being able hold a bottle or two up to being able to hold hundreds of bottles.
Some of the better ones come with a tinted front glass panel if they have glass or a solid door. If you are going to buy a refrigerator to aid in your wine storage make sure that the glass door is tinted dark or not there at all.
How should I orient the bottles in my storage area?
One of the largest mistakes people make when storing wine is to store it standing up in the vertical position. The way good wine, that is wine that is sealed with a cork maintains its freshness is from the cork.
Corks need moisture to work, if a bottle of wine is stored in the vertical position the cork can and will dry out. Once the cork drys out you can be that your bottle of wine is going to start losing flavor and develop weird tastes.
By keeping the wine on its side, or horizontal you allow the cork to sit in the wine and that keeps it moist. A moist cork is a happy cork that makes a tight seal.
In closing please take the time to store you wine properly. It doesn’t take much effort and the pay offs will be great. You will not have to worry about spoiling a $400.00 bottle of wine.
