How to Store Wine for the Long Term

9 of 9 in Series: The Essentials of Serving and Storing Wine

If you’ve decided to collect and store wines over the long term, remember that poorly stored wines make disappointment inevitable. To keep wines indefinitely, you really need a wine storage facility with controlled temperature and humidity. This is especially important if you live where the temperature exceeds 70°F (21°C) for any length of time.

Without proper storage, you may be tempted to drink those fine wines long before they reach their best drinking period, or worse yet, the wines may die an untimely death in your closet, garage, or warm cellar.

The passive wine cellar

If the place where you intend to store your wine is very cool (below 60°F, 15.5°C) and very damp (75 percent humidity or higher) year-round, you can be the lucky owner of a passive cellar.

It’s called passive because you don’t have to do anything to it, such as cool it or humidify it. Usually, only deep cellars completely below ground level with thick stones or comparable insulation can be completely passive in temperate climates.

Using an artificially cooled and/or humidified room

Most of us are neither lucky enough to have a passive wine cellar nor fortunate enough to be able to create one without extraordinary expense. The next best solution is an artificially cooled and/or humidified room.

The following are key features of a good wine storage area:

The temperature stays cool — ideally, in the 53° to 59°F range (12° to 16°C).
The temperature is fairly constant — wide swings in temperature are not good for the wine.
The area is damp or humid, with a minimum of 70 percent humidity and a maximum of 95 percent (mold sets in above 95 percent).
The area is free from vibrations, which can travel through the wine; heavy traffic and motors cycling on and off are detrimental to your wine.
The area is free from light, especially direct sunlight.
The storage area is free from chemical odors, such as paints, paint remover, and so on.

Avoid refrigerators for wine storage. Don’t leave good wine or Champagne in the refrigerator for more than a week; not only is the refrigerator motor harmful, but the excessively cold temperature (as low as 35°F, 1.6°C) tends to numb and flatten the flavors of the wine.

Climate control

Professional cooling units are available. (Find them advertised in wine accessory catalogs and wine magazines.) These are climate-control devices that humidify and cool the air of a room. These units come in various capacities to suit rooms of different dimensions. Many require professional installation. Depending on where you live, you may not need to run your cooling unit all year.

Insulation

The ideal insulation is a 3-inch-thick, thermoplastic resin called polyurethane. It’s odorless, doesn’t absorb moisture, and makes a fine seal. Even when a cooling unit isn’t running, temperatures will change extremely slowly in most wine rooms with this kind of insulation.

Fiberglass insulation is not recommended, because it will absorb the moisture created by your cooling unit.

Wine racks

Racking systems vary from elaborate redwood racks to simple metal or plastic types. The choice of material and configuration really hinges on how much you want to spend and your own personal taste.

Large, diamond-shaped wooden (or synthetic composition) racks are popular because they efficiently store up to eight bottles per section and make maximum use of space. Such racks also permit the easy removal of individual bottles.

A diamond-shaped wine rack.

Wine caves for small spaces

What if you have no space — for instance, if you live in an apartment? You have three choices:

Leave your wine at a friend’s or relative’s house.
Rent storage space in a refrigerated public warehouse.
Buy a wine cave — also known as a wine vault — a self-contained, refrigerated unit that you plug into an electrical outlet.

Many wine caves resemble attractive pieces of furniture, either vertical or horizontal credenzas. Some have glass doors, and all of them can be locked. Wine caves range in size and capacity from a tiny unit that holds only 24 bottles to really large units that hold up to 2,800 bottles. You find wine caves advertised extensively in wine accessory catalogs and in the back pages of wine magazines.

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How to Store Wine for the Long Term

9 of 9 in Series: The Essentials of Serving and Storing Wine

The passive wine cellar