Hey guys! Today I will teach you how to properly store wine.
But first, a bit of my background: I’m a WSET Level 3 wine expert, and I also happen to be a fitness expert. So I don’t go down that road where you have to count your macros like crazy and diet really hard. No, no… I help people lose weight and get in shape while enjoying the sweet things in life, like food and wine. I also like to simplify all my knowledge about wine, so it’s easier for everyone to understand and to discover which wine you would like.
For a while, I’ve been getting questions and comments like “I have this great wine for 3 years ago, but I don’t have a wine cooler. Can I keep it in the fridge?”, “How do I store my wine?”, “Should I keep my wine in the kitchen, the garage, or somewhere else?”. Here I will answer to all those questions and give you a bit of insight about what happens with the wine.
The main thing to know about red wine is that, if you don’t have a wine fridge or wine cellar, (like most of us mortals) you DO want to put your wine in the fridge if you live in a place where room temperature is much warmer than 65º (I live in Clearwater, Florida). However, if you live in a cool place, you can leave it in your kitchen inside a cabinet. It’s important to put it somewhere dark. The less light your wine sees, the better it will preserve.
If you keep it in the fridge, it will be too cold to drink once you take it out. Leave it at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour before you serve it!
Oh… I will tell you what happened when I left one of my favorite red wines in the car for several days while I was traveling. When I tried to open it, I was so disappointed to see that the cork was slightly raised.
So… what did that mean?
When wine reaches 85°, it starts to cook. When you think about something cooking on the stove and you have a lid on it, it starts to bubble and steam starts to come up. That’s exactly what’s happening inside the bottle. With my red wine, the heat had gotten to it and the pressure pushed the cork out.
Unfortunately, no. Once the wine is cooked, it’s gone bad. What may have been a fresh, delicious red wine will suddenly taste like alcohol and vinegar, and will have a heavy consistency - like syrup.
One last important thing to keep in mind when storing your wine: Keep it on it’s side. That way you will keep the cork from drying out. A dried-out cork is something you don’t want because it can just crumble all over your wine. On top of that, you can also risk getting oxygen into your wine, as the cork isn’t moist anymore and won’t be able to preserve the wine anymore.
So, to recap:
