Aged Well: How to Store Wine

By Relocation.com Staff

Wine-collecting used to be the province of the rich, who could afford to buy the wine as well as store it in a way that would preserve and even enhance its value over time. No more. Nowadays there are several options for the would-be connoisseur to get the storage quality they need to store wine safety and inexpensively. There are both existing self-service storage units that offer this service in addition to normal storage services, as well as dedicated wine storage facilities.

You can make a lot of money if choose the correct wines and ensure they are correctly stored. The value of a good wine often increases substantially if it is handled with proper care.

Wine stored correctly can last for many years. When wine is found on old shipwrecks at the bottom of the ocean, it is usually in very good drinking condition because it's been stored at just the right temperature and humidity without odors and movement in the environment.

So what are the perfect conditions for wine storage? Although you might turn to an expert storage facility for these services, you should know the information yourself so that you're an educated consumer.

Temperature

The correct temperatures should be observed carefully both when you store wine and when you serve it. If you want the wine to age well, the storage facility should be 56-58 degrees F. A wine's distinctive flavor is dictated by complex biological compounds. 56-58 degrees F is the temperature that best preserves that. This optimal temperature also ensures the best chance of the wine aging well and having its particular taste.

If you observe the correct temperatures when you serve the wine, you will serve it at its best. Basically, you can take red wines directly from storage to serving, while white wines should be chilled in the refrigerator first.

Below is a useful guide:
  Rich, Red and full bodied wines should be served at 59-68 degrees F
  Light Red should be served at 54-57 degrees F
  Dry White, Rose and Blush wines should be served at 46-57 degrees F
  Champagne, and sparkling wines should be served at 43-47 degrees F

Humidity

If you have ever tasted bitter wine, it's because of oxidation. This is why you must observe humidity levels as closely as you do temperature when you are storing wine. The optimal humidity level is 70% RH or higher, as this will prevent cork shrinkage. If the cork shrinks, oxygen will slowly leak into the bottle and convert the wine to acid.

Ullage

One can learn quite a bit about the contents of a bottle of wine by examining it on the outside. If the bottle is nearly full, you can assume that it is a new wine or a good wine of 5-15 years of age; if it is full only below the shoulder of the bottle, you will find that in all likelihood it is not drinkable. The level of the wine in the bottle will depend a lot on the age and type of wine, but it should always reach the upper shoulder of the bottle.

The term used to describe the gap between the cork and the wine in the bottle is ''Ullage.'' ''Proper Ullage'' is the optimum distance existing between cork and wine. Oxygen in the air destroys wine by causing oxidation of esters so that the wine becomes acidic, and it can even turn into vinegar.

So it's important in wine storage that the level of humidity in the storage unit creates water diffusion from the outside so that the cork will enlarge and no wine can escape, the diffusivity of water being greater than the diffusivity of wine.

This is why the humidity levels should be maintained at 70% RH; if the levels are below 70% RH, the wine will leak from the bottle slowly because the cork dries out, allowing oxygen to leak in. If the humidity levels are maintained properly the wine will not require re-corking for a long time.

Labels

To maintain the integrity of the label during storage -- which is not always easy as the high humidity in the storage area makes it difficult to keep the labels intact and free of stains -- there are plastic protectors for the specific purpose of protecting the wine label. You can buy these and put them on the bottles prior to storage, but first check whether your storage facility supplies them as part of its service.