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| Wine keeping best practices |
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In an ideal World, we would all have a below ground level cellar, filled with countless bottles of wines from the World's best producing regions, slowly maturing in the perfect environment... But in the vast majority of cases people do not have a cellar in which to keep their wine.
Well, not having a proper cellar, may not be as bad as it sounds, and there are several reasons for that. First, an increasing number of wines are made for immediate enjoyment: ie, modern winemakers are mastering the art of softening the tannins of the wine, thus producing wines which are more round and supple, even at an early age, thus canceling the need to store the wine for several years before enjoying it. For the wines which do need to be laid down for a year or more, it is very important to remember the key elements to successful cellaring, so let us see how we can find the most suitable place in the house.
The best place will be dark; it will have a temperature as constant as possible of between 10 to 17 degrees Celcius, with no dramatic change in temperature; it will be humid if possible, but not wet!; there will be no vibration; the bottles will be kept lying on their side, ensuring that the wine is in contact with the cork. Minimum manipulation must occur, so the children's playroom may not be the ideal place, and that is basically it. Therefore, a corner of a spare room, a closet, the bottom of a wardrobe should do nicely. I would avoid the attic (significant changes in temperature!), and the garage, for the same reason.
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