There is one thing that a wine lover really can’t do without and that is good wine cellar design or wine storage to store their best wines as they improve with age. Wine is unlike most other drinks because it can actually improve in the bottle. The more supple or complex wines that spend a reasonable amount of time in a cellar are the best to drink.
While most cheap wines are meant to be consumed straight away, an nice, cheap red can normally be a little softer to drink after being stored for 6 months.
At the same time, bad cellaring can ruin any wine so any wine bottle that are going to be stored for more than 12 months need proper storage.
Wine cellars don’t have to be complicated or overthought. An underground area is always best, and assuming you’ve got the right conditions, a wine cellar can simply be a crate kept under the stairs.
Firstly, wine likes to stay cool, preferably below 18 degrees Celsius.
For best cellaring results, you should keep the cellar’s temperature quite steady whereby it changes by less than two degress from warmer summer months to cold winters.
In addition, humid conditions work well for corked wines as corks need to be kept relatively moist. Cork-sealed wine should be stored on their side whereas wines with screwcaps can be stored either on the sides or vertically.
There are numerous options for cellaring wine regardless if you don’t think you’ve got space in your house or live in a flat.
Firstly, you can get a wine fridge. These start from a couple of hundred dollars and come in sizes ranging from 24 bottles for the novice to a couple of thousand bottles for the serious collector.
There are also some companies that specialise in wine storage and they will keep your wines in perfect condition until they are ripe for drinking.
Importantly wines made from only some grape varieties age particularly well.
If you’re storing a whites, a good starting point will be a nice Riesling (Eden or Clare Valley), Chardonnay (say from Margaret River or Adelaide Hills) or Semillons (Hunter Valley).
For cellaring red wines, great Cabernet Sauvs aged well especially thoese from Margaret River, Yarra Valley and Coonawarra as well as Shiraz from the Barossa Valley, Clare Valley and Central Victoria which you should keep for 15 to 20 years in the right conditions.
Tags: wine, wine bottle, wine cellar, wine storage
