WINE BOTTLE STORAGE AND TEMPERATURE

- Cooler Is Better

When storing your precious homemade wine for the long-term--after
it has been bottled--it is usually understood that cooler is
better. Most wine experts agree that the ultimate storage temp-
erature for most bottled wines is 55 degrees F.

Cooler temperatures slow down the effects of oxidation. The same
is true with reduced light exposure. Both help to reduce the
symptoms caused by having too much oxygen in a wine.

But, don't get too hung up on temperature. The improvement is
only marginal for each degree you go down in temperature. For
instance, a 65 degree basement is much, much better than an 75
degree dinning room. This 10 degree improvement is a major
benefit. But a 55 degree storage area is only marginally better
than a room that is 65 degrees.

While there is some benefit by going on down to 55 degrees F.
from 65 degrees, it is only minor as compared to getting the wine
away from a 75 degree F. room.


- Minimize Temperature Fluctuations

Your focus can be better served by finding a reasonably cool
place to store your wine that has a stable temperature. For
example, if I had a choice of storing my wine in a room that was
a constant 65 degrees or a room that had temperatures that
fluctuated between 45 and 65 all the time, without question I
would choose the stable 65 degree room.

Temperature change is hard on a bottle of wine. It wears the wine
down. Eventually, this constant rise and fall in temperature will
give the wine a flabby flavor, weak aroma and a character that
lacks depth or complexity. Please realize that this does not
happen overnight, but with each rise and fall in temperature the
wine will lose just a little bit more of its quality each time.


- How Temperature Changes Affect A Wine

The reason for this deterioration in quality is because of
expansion and contraction. Changes in temperature causes things
to expand and contract. But not all things expand and contract
the same amount.

In the case of a bottle of wine, both the glass bottle and the
wine itself expand and contract along with temperature changes.
But they expand to different degrees. The wine in the bottle
expands and contracts much more so than the glass bottle in which
it is being contained.

So as the temperature of the bottle of wine rises, the wine
inside expands more so than the glass. This causes pressure
within the bottle. In turn, this pressure causes a small amount
of the wine's aroma or bouquet to slowly escape through the cork.

In more rapid temperature changes there may also be some notice-
able seepage of the wine itself through the cork. But this is
only half of the story.

When this bottle is cooled back down again, the wine contracts
more than the glass causing a vacuum within the bottle. As a
result air is slowly sucked through the cork into the bottle.

So what you have is a situation where a wine's good aroma is
being exchanged for bad, damaging air with each up and down cycle
of temperature. One could say that the bottle is actually
breathing with each cycle. It exhales its bouquet; and inhales
oxidative air--not a good trade.

When this temperature change cycle happens two or three times
through the life of a bottle of wine, not much effect in quality
is noticed. But when this happens on a continual bases, then
there is usually a detectable change for the worse.


- Check Your Temperatures

If you are not sure where you stand with your wine storage area,
it might be in your best interest to monitor the different
temperatures that occur over a given period of time.

You might surprise yourself. Quite often areas thought to have
stable temperatures such as fruit cellars or closed off portions
of basements, in fact, can have daily temperature fluctuations as
high as 5 to 10 degrees.


- Related Article:

"Controlling Oxidation In Your Homemade Wines"