Wine Storage Tips

If you are going to be keeping a bottle of wine around for any longer than two weeks, knowing the basic rules of wine storage will make sure you aren't dissapointed when you finally pop the cork. Any bottle of wine worth more than $15 deserves at least a bit of care.



Keep the wine bottles horizontal

There's a reason wine makers use cork instead of plastic caps. Cork breathes, and this is very important to the quality of the wine. What's important, however, is that the cork stays wet. So don't buy any wine rack that has your bottles tilted up so there is no contact between the wine and the cork. Without the contact between the wine and the cork, the cork will crack over time, letting in bacteria and dust and all sorts of things you don't want to be drinking.

There's another wine storage rule that involves the cork breathing. Over time, wine will take in the odors around it, and those odors can affect the taste of the wine. So while your hand-knotted strand of garlic may look good next to the wine storage rack, you'd do well to either move the wine or the garlic so that they're at least 3-4 feet apart. Truly valuable wines should be nowhere near odor creating substances, as they longer they are exposed, the more of a disapointment you'll have when you finally do take the first sip.

Keep the wine between 40 and 65 degrees

The ideal temperature is 50 to 55 degrees, but anything between 40 to 65 degrees is good enough. If you have an attached storage area (that does not smell of gasoline or paint or anything else), you may be able to store your wine there year round, but unfortunately these types of storage also always climb above 65 degrees in the summer (and sometimes much higher... 90 to 100 degrees in a storage shed is normal), or they fall close to freezing at least one night in the middle of winter. Neither situation is acceptable.

Basements usually work, and this is why people have been building wine cellars (and cold storage cellars) ever since man started building. Even if the temperature rises to 70 degrees for a few nights in the summer, so long as you don't have a truly valuable collection, you'll probably be fine. However, if that does happen, don't put the bottles into the refrigerator for a few days to protect them. Sudden temperature changes are no good -- its better to let the wine be a bit warm for a few days. Really, the worst consequence is that it will age a little faster than you'd like (no, this is not a short-cut to having prefectly aged wine). If you're really concerned, maybe its time to drink one of those bottles.

If you are keeping the bottles two weeks or less, or you aren't overly obsessed with the quality of the wine you're drinking, keeping the bottles in the refrigerator or anywhere that has a consistent indoor temperature is good enough. However, if you really care about your wine, consider getting a wine refrigerator. A reasonably good one can be had for $60 to $200. More expensive wine refrigators run up to $400.

Keep the wine out of sunlight

This is related to the temperature rule, but it is important enough to have its own section. Do not put your wine rack where there is direct sunlight. And keep in mind that where the sun hits can change over the course of the year.

Keep the wine from vibration

Vibration will cause the sediments in the wine to stir up a bit, and this affects flavor. So don't move the wine around a lot, and thin hard before you put your wine rack next to a door frame that shudders a bit everytime someone slams the door. Those of you who live next to train tracks may have to get creative... padding the bottles might work.