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HAPPY MEDIUM
The art—and
science—of wine storage, and why temperature matters more than you
think
What’s one sure sign
you’ve become [gulp] an adult? You’ve purchased a fine bottle of
wine which you DON’T plan to drink in the next week. The
anticipation is half the fun, right?
First of all, I tip
my hat to you. The one time I did buy a collectible wine, curiosity
overcame me and I opened it within a month. BUT I’ve since come to
recognize—and I hope to help you do likewise—that I really wasn’t
prepared to store a collectible wine anyway. Not only did I not have
a wine
fridge or wine cellar, I didn’t even have a wine
tote. The poor wine didn’t have a chance.
I’ve since learned
that if you want to store wine for any period of time, there are
three main storage conditions to worry about: temperature,
humidity and light. We’ll focus on temperature in this
article.
Just Right
When it comes to
storage, the “Goldilocks” principle seems to work best: not to hot;
not too cold. In fact, there is almost universal agreement that the
best temperature to store wine at is 55°F or 13°C, with as little
fluctuation as possible. Before the advent of kegerators and wine
fridges, the French—just like their beer-brewing mid-European
counterparts—stored their wine in caves that reached this
temperature naturally.
Recent research
reveals the effects of ignoring this storage model. The aging we
desire from fine wine is the result of many natural chemical
reactions taking place over time. Any chemist worth their NaCl will
confirm that drastic changes in temperature alter the timing and
rate of desired aging. In fact, it’s been proven that wine stored at
73°F will age 2.1 to 8.0 times faster. That means 24 years of
storage is reduced to 6.3 years. Store it at 91°F and your wine ages
4.1 to 56 times faster—meaning up to 18 years of aging at 55°F can
be reduced to one month of aging at 91°F. Simply keeping a fine wine
in a shaded area of your house won’t just reduce its quality. You
could likely create a sour slop not even worthy of your garbage
disposal.
In our last house,
my wife and I stored wine on wrought iron wine racks mounted on the
wall next to a window. Hey, it looked great! But during summer
months the temperature fluctuated anywhere from 65°F to 85°F.
Unknowingly, we’d installed our very own wine accelerator.
By now you may be
feeling guilty for abusing that treasured bottle you’ve been saving
under the sink. If so, know that you’re not alone. Few wine stores
even keep their stock at the right temperature. Those who do
typically only have space for a small percentage of their
inventory. Here are a couple of practical shopping tips to bear in
mind:
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Keep Your Lid On.
If the cork protrudes a few millimeters from the top of the
bottle, it’s a good sign that the air in the space between the
bottom of the cork and the top of the wine has expanded due to
heat, and the wine has been overheated.
-
Avoid Hot Rods.
How many times have you’ve left bottles of wine in the car during
the summer months? It takes just 10 minutes for the internal
temperature to climb 40°F! One too many errands and you could end
up with very expensive grape juice.
If you can afford a
professionally installed wine cellar to store your valued vino, then
more power to you. (Hey, how about a loan?) Or, if you’re like the
rest of us, consider a high-quality wine
fridge and proper
cases to carry your wine from port to port (sorry,
I couldn’t resist a wine pun). Cheers!
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