If you preserve wine correctly, wine can last for decades, even centuries, and increase in quality and value. It must be stored correctly in order to last and preserve, as even the greatest wine in the world can spoil. Here are some simple tips to help with your storage for wine.
Temperature is perhaps the most important factor to wine storing. It is the ideal way to make sure your wine is lasting and improving over a period. For the long-term storage of wine, we would recommend an average temperature of around 55F (13C).
You can also ask your manufacturer for storage details for your ready to drink bottles. Regardless of the type and label, wine should never be stored below 25F (-4C) as this could cause the bottle to freeze, or above 68F (20C) as this may cause the bottle to spoil quicker and speed up the aging process. Most importantly it is essential to keep your storage temperature as stable as possible. Temperature fluctuations may cause your wine cork to expand and contract, which may allow wine to seep out around it.
View our temperature controlled wine cellar portfolio
Custom Wine Cellars are no doubt the best way to store wine. Wine Cellars work to protect your precious bottles from the elements and are a nice way to show off your vintage labels.
Storing bottles with corks horizontally in your custom wine cellar on a wine rack is the better option due to keeping the cork moist will have your wine lasting longer, as a dried-up cork can cause premature ageing and may allow air to go inside of the bottle making it spoil.
Lighting is important to consider with storing wine in a custom wine cellar also. Strong lighting can alter the wines delicate chemical makeup by overheating the wine stored. It is important for it to be as cool as possible in there. Any sort of daylight, fluorescent or UV lighting will be a threat to overheating the bottles. Instead, use LED lights as they do not emit UV light, and the amount of heat they give out is minimal as they tend to stay cool.
If it is not possible to have a custom wine cellar in your home, a wine fridge is the perfect option as its consistently cool, dark and moist. A standard refrigerator could potentially spoil wine due to temperature and cross contamination with food odours. At Sorrells, we can offer wine cabinets for both long term wine storage as well as setting the temperature for ready to drink bottles.
Our recommendation would be Transtherm by EuroCave for a wine cabinet.
If you have opened a bottle of wine and want to stop it from spoiling, keep the wine bottle chilled at room temperature and out of light, this is an option to make your wine last longer and taste the same after opening.
Although once opened, classic wine styles generally keep for around 3-5 days in proper wine storage conditions.
One of the great pleasures of learning about and enjoying wine is curating a wine collection that is personal to your tastes. Knowing how to store it correctly is the most important thing of all.