How To Store Wine So It Stays At It’s Best

In an ideal world we would all have lovely big wine cellars with heat regulators and air circulation systems. This would give the wines the best change of aging perfectly and we wouldn’t have to worry about them at all. This is very rarely a reality however and the majority of us just try to make the best out of what we have. Here is some top advice for storing your wine collection properly.

Location. Your bottles, both white and red wine, are best placed in a cool room, away from the light and with moderate humidity levels. The ideal temperature for storage should be between 10° and 16° C (50° to 61° F).Anything warmer than this will start to have negative effects on the quality of the wine, and a temp 25° C or more will have even more dramatic consequences on flavour. Direct light can not only affect the temperature of the wine and air inside the bottle but also discolour it. Moisture levels in the room can affect the cork and cause it to swell or shrink. This can sometimes have the effect of letting air into the bottle and causing something called oxidation, an annoying situation that happens when the liquid is in contact with oxygen for extensive time.

Positioning. You should lay the wine bottles on their side or slightly elevated when in storage. This is due to the theory that if the cork is not in contact with the wine at all times it will lose its natural moisture and shrink. These again can lead to oxidation as mentioned before.

Display. You don’t allows want your wines tucked away in a dark room. often you will want them to be on display so you can admire them. A good choice is often a wooden wine cabinet due to the fact these tend to maintain a steady temperature and you can also store your decanters, dinnerware and other glassware etc in there too. You don’t want any that well jeopardise the thermoregulation of the wine so avoid cabinets with glass panels or doors as these trap heat.