If you’re a wine collector, a wine investor, or you simply plan on taking care of your wine collection, simply stacking bottles in your kitchen cupboard isn’t enough.
There are several storage factors that can affect how well your wine smells, tastes, and ages, including temperature, humidity, sunlight, and even vibrations.
If you want to know how to store your wine correctly, we’ve got you covered. Keep reading to find out some of the best ways that you can store your wine.
A Wine Cellar
If you have a large wine collection consisting of over 100 bottles, then a wine cellar may be the best place to store your wine. However, they can be rather expensive, both to install and to maintain – costing over £10,000 for a quality wine cellar.
Wine cellars cover all of the important aspects of wine storage – temperature, humidity, and sunlight. Cellars are a great space to store your collection as they are naturally dark spaces, so there’s little chance of your wine being negatively affected by the UV rays found in sunlight.
You can store hundreds and hundreds of bottles in a wine cellar, and you can organise them pretty much however you like – whether it be by age, type of wine, or the region the wine is from.
Wine cellars are also naturally damp spaces, but it’s always best to find a way to regulate the humidity levels to ensure the perfect humidity levels. Your wine storage space needs humidity to keep the cork moist – if there isn’t enough humidity, then the cork may dry out and slip out of place. This will expose your wine to oxygen, and ruin your wine in a matter of days.
Wine cellars are ideal for long-term wine storage, which means that they’re the perfect place to age your wine. You can leave your wine collection in your cellar for years until it’s aged perfectly – and increased in price, which is important if you’re a wine investor.
However, many wines on the market today are designed for quick consumption and aren’t suitable for ageing, so it’s important to check that your wine is suitable for ageing before leaving it in your wine cellar.
If you’d like to know more about wine cellars, check out this post.
A Wine Cooler
Wine coolers are a great way of storing your wine for shorter periods of time or for serving – however, you can find wine coolers that are perfect for long-term wine storage.
Wine coolers in 2022 do much more than keep your wine cool – they regulate humidity levels, protect your wine from sunlight, and even minimise vibrations. Wine fridges usually regulate humidity levels within the recommended range of 55% to 75%, ensuring that the bottles remain dry and the cork remains moist.
Wine coolers will either have a single temperature zone, dual temperature zones, or multi-temperature zones.
This allows you to store different types of wine at separate temperatures within the same unit. It also means that you can store some of your bottles in the long term while having wine ready to be served at another temperature.
You can set your wine cooler at serving temperature (which varies from wine to wine), or long-term storage temperature, which is usually within the range of 11 degrees Celsius to 14 degrees Celsius.
Some wine coolers have display shelves that allow you to display your glasses and other wine accessories. Wine fridges usually accommodate Bordeaux bottles, but if they have removable or adjustable shelves, you can store other bottle shapes such as Champagne.
If you’re interested in improving your wine storage, it’s always best to check out some quality wine coolers.
A Wine Cabinet
Wine cabinets have similar features to wine coolers – however, they tend to be more suited to larger wine collections.
They’re also a better choice if you plan on storing your wine in the long term, and can age your wine collection in the best possible way.
Like wine fridges, wine cabinets come in three designs – freestanding, built-in, and integrated. Freestanding cabinets stand freely, whereas built-in and integrated wine cabinets are designed to be installed in spaces such as walls, cabinets, or under kitchen counters.