You ordered an exceptional wine or have precious wine bottles of a remarkable vintage of a special event that you don’t want to uncork. For a wedding celebration, the opening of your new restaurant or for celebrate an anniversary, you received a premium-wine gift.
The idea is to age them for many years and one day, this rare and singular wine will take life enjoying the sublime wine notes inside the bottle, right? But are you pretty sure about that?
Few wines are in real conditions to be members of the selected wine club of called “old wines”. Why? The true is that wines worsen after 2 or 3 years, losing properties in which influence a lot of factors:
Wine Storage Factors You Should Consider Before Trying to Age Your “Wine Gifts”
- Do you have a good wine cellar to keep it safe?
- Your wine refrigerator has enough space to save them?
- Do you have optimal conditions of keeping?
In other words good conditions of…
a) Light
b) Temperature
c) Humidity
Not everybody have rooms with best conditions, particularly in apartments with small space because you can not forget that…
* The ambient-odors can affect the wine
* The bottles can not stand in vertical position, must be a horizontal wine storage to remain the cork moist
* Exposed to certain hours to the light, but you don’t see it because you aren’t at this time in your house
Are those wine storage conditions enough for your top wines? Not really!
More Wine Information and Factors to Be Present in the Wine Aging
a) Alcohol: general speaking between the 12% to 14%. The quantity of alcohol helps to preserve them
b) Sugar: The natural sugar is a powerful preservative, clearly exposed in sweet white wines like late harvest or Port wines. They can live many years even improving their quality. The opposite phenomenon is with dry wines…no doubt sweeter, better 
c) Acidity: the level protects the wines from spoiling, more acidity provide a better maintaining.
d) Tannins: they act as antioxidants and give longevity. They’re present in red wines. The oak aging in red wines is helpful because the oak barrels give wood-tannins protecting from the oxidation.
Type of Wines that Can Be Aged Properly and Which Ones You Shouldn’t
- Red wines: In the vast majority, wine makers and wineries produce wines to be consumed relatively sooner, no more than a couple of years. Following that time, the wine begins to degrade.
Counted exceptions can reach a maturity after an excellent wine making process. Overall, these fine wines are expensive but with good wine storages you can wait till it arrives to its best state.
- White wines: sparkling wines and in general white wines after 1 or 2 years begin to lose aromas and freshness. The motive is the lacking of tannins. The exceptions are white wines that were fermented in oak, in that way the barrels supply tannins that longer their life. The sweet white wines including fortified wines explained before are good for aging too.
- Rose wines: they’re fragile for the lower proportion of tannins, not indicated for aging.
The wine collector should have a detailed register of the wine stock in order to uncork the wine bottles that are at their best moment.
The popular belief that all wines are good as time goes by, it isn’t precisely true!
So think twice, before keeping a wine and when you’ll uncork finally, at this magical instant, to not end getting a wine in bad conditions, converting a festive moment in the contrary.
Have you passed an experience of uncorked a special wine bottle, postponed for many times, and you ended becoming frustrated?
Do you keep wines or know somebody that is doing it? Or you still think that in every case, wines: older are better? Let me know your wine adventures in the comment area.
If you enjoyed your read, Subscribe to my RSS feed or get updates by Email!
Photo Credit by Joe Shlabotnik
Related Posts:
Very informative Gera! Thanks!
Gera, excellent article! My husband is the wine expert in our family and he does a wonderful job choosing and storing wines. We keep certain wines in the wine refrigerator (usually the ones we are to drink soon) and others that need to age in the wine cellar in the basement where it’s always perfectly cool. We recently found a really good wine-preserving pump made by Brookstone that doesn’t break and really works well to keep the opened bottle for the next day.
Good info! talking about it, I could have a glass now:-)
Great article, but I’ll just drink it on the spot
I never ever age wine. I just open up the bottle and have a glass. I’m a super light drinker, despite being Russian
Thanks for sharing this. Maybe one day we can have a wine cellar. Until then, we just pop the cork and drink!
I’m not that much of a wine drinker but I do have it once in a while. Since I live in apartment I have no place to put the wine if we happen to receive it as a gift.
when we have dinner parties however,there’s always somebody who brings two bottles and it always goes fast! lol
Wonderful post! Like 5 Star, my husband is the family sommelier and we have a fair number of bottles collected. None of them would be regarded as fine old wines, although he has some reds that he’s nursing through for a few years. Otherwise, the intent is to drink within a couple of years of purchase. We don’t have a wine cellar – it’s really more of a wine closet! – but the temp is constant and cool, and it’s nice and dark. So far so good!
I’m giving this post to my husband! Thanks again for some great information.
Great tips Gera! We don’t store wine, we drink it quickly! We have friends that do, and think it’s a good hobby if you have the knowledge behind the science!
I also have to say that one thing that drives me nuts is when they show some newly remodeled kitchen that has built-in wine-racks in the kitchen, especially near the stove. Way tooo warm in there to store wine properly. People, don’t do it.
Thanks for the useful information!
Cheers and have a great weekend,
Rosa
Great information! I actually know nothing about wine, I need all the help I can get.
What an informative article. Thanks!
huh! I had no idea! I was one of the ignorant ones who though I could keep any wine for as long as I want and the longer the better! thanks for the great info!
As always, great post Gera! It is true… I don’t have the space or the conditions and therefore, don’t keep too much wine on hand (well, that and I drink it!).
Once, I was given a very nice bottle, so I tried to hold onto it for as long as possible. Finally, we drank it. I am not kidding you to say, we got *high*! Our conditions (hot and cold here in SoCal) must have done something medicinal to our wine. I guess that explains my “mental” disorder LOL!
@HoneyB
Glad you find it useful, thanks!
@5 Star Foodie
Wow thanks! You’ve all your wines bottles under perfect control, very nice that your husband is a wine expert
@Soma
Thanks! Enjoy your wine right now
@Gail
Thanks! As the majority, to drink them at the moment
@Jessie
and they go very quick lol !
Parties are the special occasions when you uncork them, in general sweet white wines
@Olga
Light drinker being Russian lol! Olga perhaps some vodka hehe?
@The Duo Dishes
Not everybody uses wine cellars, overall the good wine bottles are vanished fast!
@Tangled Noodle
Thanks! Ohh like Natasha your husband is the family sommelier wow. Your wine bottles are very happy in this environment!
Hope this post will like to your husband
@Heidi from Savory Tv
Agree Heidi is a good hobby if it’s well done, if not drink it fast
@Carolyn Jung
Ohh Carolyn good point wine bottles and high temp in a kitchen is a bad combo
@Rosa’s Yummy Yums
Thanks for coming by Rosa and a great weekend for you too
@Sara
Thanks! Hope this is a little help about wine bottles their properties and storages!
@C.G. the Foodie
Great you like them! Thanks for stopping by!
@Burpandslurp
No matter, this is the popular belief that a wine older is better, but not always. If not you should drink quick lol!
@Averagebetty
If the conditions aren’t optimal for wine storage, the better solution is drink it hehe! Wow this was a top wine and medicinal one
Dear Gera!
Greetings!
vey informative and positive posting!
Don’t ou think it’s about time to introduce the wines of your own country?
Cheers,
robert-Gilles
Gera, this is a wonderful article about wine storage. I never feel completely sure about those right conditions to store wines, so I prefer drinking them just after buying.
Gera, your blog is amazing! Like AverageBetty, I have problems with storage space for my wine, so I actually just bought one of these for a pretty decent price, and it stays out of my way:
wine racksand it works really well for me!