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Basics of wine storage.Jan 04 '00 Write an essay on this topic.THIS REVIEW WILL TELL YOU THE BASICS OF WINE STORAGE AND WILL NOT FOCUS ON WHICH WINE RACKS ARE THE MOST AFFORDABLE. THERE ARE SOME STORING SUGGESTIONS AT THE VERY END SHOULD YOU WISH TO SKIP THE SCIENCE PART OF THIS LESSON. First of all, one should understand the basics of storing wine. I will not go into the whole debate about what is actually preferred or which method (there are more than one) is the best, but I will cover the items which common sense tell you should be appropriate for your wines. I have actually built my own wine cellar from scratch which has given me an intimate knowledge of what wine needs. Having moved to Miami, I have lost my cellar and must now improvise until such time as I have figured out an alternative. Please read on.... OK, we are going to assume that no one reading this has a wine cellar. Great! Now that we have established this, we are also going to assume that no one lives in a house with a 55 degree basement that is dark and always about 70 percent humid. Yeah, that's right, those are the ideal conditions for wine. So, that being said, let's look a little at why you want those conditions. Temperature: Have you ever cooked with wine, or marinated sausages in beer? While the flavors in the sauce and meat are incredible, but you really wouldn't want to drink the wine that has been in the pan. OK, that is oversimplified but basically is accurate and gives you an idea of why to keep it at a relatively cool temperature. Same goes for too cold. Unfair as it is, compare Champagne with beer. Ever had a frozen beer? Same goes for Champagne. It will be ruined. Freeze wine and throw it out, cook with it or be adventurous and try to make vinegar. No promises on how it will taste. HUMIDITY: OK, now that we all understand the fine points of temperature control, why so humid? Well, cork is what is used to stop up the bottles of better wines and since cork comes from an actual plant or tree, it is affected like other living things and like wood, it can dry out. When it does, it becomes smaller and small veins within the cork become more able to transmit both air and liquid, or in this case, wine. There are better materials, but there is something so romantic and historic about it, so we can be sure that we will see real cork in wine bottles for some time to come. Learn to deal with it. Sooooo, after all that, if a cork does not stay moist, then it can allow both wine and air to escape and additional air to enter into the bottle at a later date. One way to prevent this is to store wine in a humid environment. The other is to store the wine on its side so that the wine itself helps to keep the cork moist. I will not get into the whole debate on exact angles, but suffice it to say, some people think storing your wine ever so slightly at an angle instead of flat helps keep your wine even longer. In general, lying your wine on its side is much much better than standing straight up. FLUCTUATIONS IN TEMPERATURE: Perhaps as important for long term storage as any of the others is temperature fluctuation. When the temperature changes, depending on the angle of your bottle (remember the above mentioned item?) either wine or air can escape from your bottle when the temperature increases. When the temperature decreases, you guessed it, air will be dragged back in. So, you know what happens when you leave a bottle of wine open for more than a few hours, it changes. Leave it open for days and it goes bad. Same thing happens when you start introducing, albeit small, new amounts of air to your bottle of wine. It will start to oxidize and will the become bad or corked. So, after a couple seasons of storing you 1970 Petrus, in the garage at 32F in winter and 95F in summer, it is now better as a motor oil instead of a $1000 collectors bottle. Armed with all this information, you should now be able to figure out for yourself what places are reasonable for wine and which are not. Keeping wine next to the dryer is a no no. Keeping wine in the fridge is OK for white wines for short periods of time (wines to be drunk within a couple of weeks or the ever ready bottle of champagne can be kept in the fridge). Garages are out, unless you are chilling some wine for the weekends party (assuming you live in a cold, northern climate) and for those of us in Miami, forget the garage altogether. My favorite place to store wine long term (remember, I live in Miami and no longer have a wine cellar like I did in Massachusetts) is in a closet, preferably my linen closet. It stays the coolest in there, there is no light to enter the closet and the temperature changes much less than my living room does. Plus, the linens, if placed on top of the wine, help to insulate it further against fluctuations. Another option is to keep it under a bathroom sink. Kitchen sinks tend to be a no go as do kitchen cabinets as they will get warm and cold depending on what is happening in the kitchen with the oven, dishwasher, etc. As far as storing you wine in a rack, I only suggest putting out a few bottles in a wine rack in your kitchen as it looks inviting. So, if you want a really cheap way of storing your wines, try the closet. If you are a little more adventurous and have deeper pockets, you can choose one of the wine refrigerators. Starting around $700-$800 dollars, you have to be reasonably serious about collecting or storing. And, for this scant $1000 dollars, you can only store about 30-50 bottles of wine. If you think about that, well, make up your own mind whether or not it is expensive. My custom wine cellar with red oak beams, halogen lights, automatic light switches, insulation like no other, vapor barriers, climate control (heat, cold and humidity) and racks to store easily 100 cases of wine cost me around $5-6000 dollars. Yes, much more money, but 100 cases of wine (ca 1200 bottles of wine) now only costs about $4-5/bottle to store as opposed to $20/bottle. See the benefit. And there are much cheaper ways of doing what I did than this. There are systems that fit into an existing closet for around 2,500 dollars and will create an instand wine cellar in a number of settings. EXTRA, EXTRA!! THIS JUST IN. For about $350, you can have the wine valet, holding between 24-36 bottles of wine and keeping your wine at the requisite 55-60 degrees. Still, at around $11/bottle, it more expensive than other options on a per bottle basis, but the actual outlay is quite little. Great suggestions for beginners! Go to www.vinotemp.com and check out there deal (I don't know how long it is going on for). Hopefully this has helped and not confused. Please let me know if there is any additional information you would like to have and I will try and include it.  |
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