How to store wine?
As you can understand from our article about the price of the wine – https://vida.bg/tsenata-na-vino-kakvo-pravi-edno-vino-skypo/, its buying is not just about satisfying the connoisseur's taste, but also an investment activity. The wine is one of the few goods, that pretty much gets better with time, so even if you have no intention of creating a wine collection with an investment purpose, once you have spend the time and money to find wines you like, it makes sense to make sure they will feel well.
There is nothing particularly complicated or mysterious about storing wine: it just wants to be left alone in the dark, cold, damp and relatively well-isolated against vibrations and smells place.
The wine loves the darkness: Short wavelenghts in the Solar System can affect the sensory characteristics, the colour and the general stability of the wine. This is why most wines are produced in dark brown or green bottles.
70 to 80% air humidity are optimal: It is in this humidity range that the cork stoppers are prevented from drying out. If the cork dries out, it begins to shrink and allows oxygen to enter the bottle. This sooner or later leads to oxidation of the wine. On the other hand, too high humidity in the room can damage the labels, preventing the wines from being properly identified and lowering the value for future sale.
The temperature should be constant and between 10 and 15 ºC: If the wine is aged slowly in a relatively cool environment, it is more likely to develop a more complex aromatic and flavour profile. The lower the temperature, the slower the wine develops, and with wine, time and slow changes are essential. Too high a temperature can spoil the wine, giving it flavors of cooked, stewed and rubbery, and too low a temperature will cause the wine to freeze and expand in volume, causing the cork to push out or, more commonly, the bottle to break (it happens with the forgotten bottle in the freezer, yes). Excessive temperature variations are also bad for the wine.
The wine wants tranquility: There are a lot of researches, which show the negative influence of the vibration on the quality of the wine, that is why it is good to give wine tranquility.
The bottle should be lying down: Whether fully horizontal, or at a slight angle is a matter of choice and place - there are pros and cons for both positions.
Strong external smells change the wine: Paints, cleaners, sauerkraut, car tires should not be stored in the same place, where you hold wine which will be consumed after 10 years or more.
Storing wine in urban conditions involves a certain creativity, as apartments usually do not have suitable rooms for this purpose. If you live in the UK or US, you can rent cellars from some of the wine merchants where you can store your wine in ideal conditions. Special wine tempering cabinets, which take care of the correct temperature and humidity and which protect to some extent from direct sunlight, provide a possible solution to this.
