collecting wine Archives

Your wine collection is getting bigger and wine storage is becoming an increasing concern.

Your fridge is full of sparkling wine, your charming little wine fridge it out of empty slots, the boxes start to pile up in the kitchen. It’s time to start looking for the next place in your house with the right conditions to accomodate the collection you so much care about.

We have previously discussed on why and when wine can benefit from bottle aging process. This time we are going to tap on how to find the most suitable place available in your house for that process to develop smoothly.

An anecdote on storing wine

Before bullet-pointing some guidelines on how to care for your wine storage, there is a short story on how to approach the process. It’s a simple yet quirky way to visualize what are you aiming for when setting up your cellar.

Imagine wine as a living being. It will age while having a proper sleep (or you can call it hibernation if you are talking about a Barolo or Saint-Estèphe, for example). What would be then the ideal conditions for a long and relaxing rest? Let’s start with lying down on a horizontal position. Light can be quite disruptive so we are also looking for a dark place. Temperature should be adequate; too warm or too cold can be bothering and we are looking for a nicely chilled environment. Also, imagine we’ll have only one blanket so if the temperature fluctuates a lot, it can be annoying to adapt to the changes. No strong smells and also no vibration, so that the dreams are not disrupted. Humidity in the air should also be at the right levels in order to keep the freshness of the environment under control.

This anecdote states the baseline of the conditions we are looking for when choosing a cradle for your aging worth bottles.

Checking the list

Bringing that story to an operational level: why and how to ensure that list of requirements is met?

1. Horizontal position

This is mainly to keep the wine in touch with the cork so that it remains wet. This will cause the cork to swollen and ensure the seal is kept tight, preventing the air to reach the wine inside the bottle.

2. Dark place

The bottle design itself already helps slowing down the aging. The frequent dark brown or green colour of the glass helps filtering the light, but it can’t do the whole job on its own. Light can damage the wine as UV interferes on the chemical reactions of the aging process. Also, choosing incandescent light bulbs over fluorescent ones is a better way to set up light for your wine storage, if needed. The latter should be avoided as it has a larger blue light spectrum, pouring more UV over the bottles.

3. Keeping it cool

We are looking here for the zone between 12C and 15C. If too cold, the wine won’t develop overtime and if too hot, that process will be too fast and can eventually damage the structure of the wine. It might result in some wines developing “cooked” flavours.

4. Avoiding Temperature swings

This is a bit hard to assess as it depends on how much the temperature changes and how fast the swing is. What we are trying to avoid is a sort of a “pumping” effect that can happen to the cork when the content of the bottle (wine + air) expands and shrinks with the temperature changes. This will cause the air to come inside the bottle and affect the aging.

5. Smells

Smells can attach to the cork and eventually the wine if the environment is saturated with strong odours for long periods of time. As a short term concern, the smell can also stick to the bottle and label which can be bothering as you bring the bottle to the table for service. Remember those hanging garlic bulbs on a cord or the cured salami hanging in the cellar? Yeap, not a good idea to have them close to your wine collection.

6. Vibration

There is a bit of debate on this one and some opinions might diverge. The idea is that vibration can impact the chemical reactions involved in the aging process and might speed them up. That acceleration can affect how the wine develops, as well as its structure. There is also the thought that vibration can disturb the sediments overtime not allowing them to sink, which makes them blend with the wine and turn it gritty. Having said that, be mindful if you have any equipment near your bottles that might produce vibration, such as a laundry machine or large engines. However, unless you leave under a train station or a football stadium, vibration might not be a concern to your collection.

7. Humidity

That’s a way to control the condition of the cork from the outside. The idea is to stay between 50% and 80% of relative humidity. If too dry it can impact the lifetime of the cork. If too humid, you can have mould developing on it (which is not a bad sign but could be avoided). Don’t forget that the conditions we are listing here are also a paradise for fungus (have you ever came across pictures of bottles in century old cellars in France…?).

My thoughts on wine storage

Looking at the conditions above, it’s more likely you will find most of them already in the basement of your house and you’ll need to adjust for the ones that need a little tweak.

If a basement is not available, any other vacant room or a closet could be a nice option for your growing collection. In that case, you can start with a piece of furniture (made of wood if possible) as a wardrobe or a door closing cabinet.

If you are willing to invest a bit more, you can also find specialized equipment that controls temperature and humidity of your cellar (if it’s a confined area).

The hardest factor to control for when talking about home-based cellars is the temperature swings, normally due to the change of seasons.

Leaving your more precious bottles or the ones that require longer aging closer to the floor of your cellar is a way to minimize that effect. The temperature fluctuations tend to be smaller there, especially if it’s a cement or stony floor.

How long should I wait to open my bottle of wine?

Why should I let the wine age? If at all.

Wine is a living thing and is trying hard to become vinegar, as discussed in a previous post.

A bit of art and technique come into play to slowdown the time for wines said to have aging or development potential. Magic happens if we open the wine at the right point of its lifetime curve.

When it comes to the line “the older the wine the better”, it is not always true. Especially if there are taste preferences involved. Not all wines are worth aging. In reality, most of the wines produced today reach the shelves ready to be drank.

Besides the production costs and retail margins, there are subjective elements that might contribute to the price you see in a wine bottle. One of these overheads is attributed to the aging potential. What does that mean?

Aging is described by a slow and sustained oxidation of the wine. During this process, the wine goes through some changes that impact its flavors, texture and color.

If a wine is designed to age or has aging potential, opening that wine ahead of time might not be “too bad”. However, you might be throwing away the share of the price you paid for its aging potential, and you might not benefit from some features of the wine you actually paid for.

How does aging impacts the wine?

Wines with good structure are prone to have good aging potential. In other words, the elements that form the wine structure evolve in harmony overtime, improving the overall balance of the wine.

Two elements change the most with aging: tannins and acidity. Acidity tends to decrease over time, bringing down also the descriptors that correlate with the freshness of the wine. Tannins tend to combine into larger chains (polymerization), resulting in a rounder and softer presence of the wine on the palate.

Red wines tend to become lighter in color. White wines tend to become darker, instead.

As consequence to the changes in the wine structure, the taste and aromas also change their profile.

Flavors (the joint perception of taste + aroma) are classified in three layers. Those are based on the origin of the aromatic compounds produced along the grape-to-wine journey:

PRIMARY (OR VARIETAL) FLAVORS, derive directly from the grape variety. The anthocyanin from the grape skins are transferred to the juice during maceration. Primary aromas as strongly influenced by climate, soil and degree of ripeness of the grapes. Example: asparagus, cherry, herbal aspects, green pepper, violets, lime, orange blossom.

SECONDARY FLAVORS develop during various stages of the alcoholic fermentation process. Those are influenced by the winemaking process and temperatures sustained during each stage. Example: pineapple, banana, butter, honeycomb, almonds, mango, brioche, freshly baked bread, black pepper.

TERTIARY FLAVORS develop during the slow and steady oxidation of the wine along the aging process. Example: cocoa powder, cigar box, leather, tobacco, vanilla, caramel, truffle, musk, coffee.

As a result of aging, the bright, fresh, crisp and vegetal aromas give way to ripe, dried or stewed fruit. Spices also become more evident and include descriptors such as leather, cigar, musk, truffles and chocolate.

So, technically, if you’d like to savor tertiary flavors in your wine (assuming it has the ability to develop them) you will need to wait for time to work its magic.

When to open that bottle?

We say that a wine is at its peak when it reaches the point of its best expression, during its life cycle.

It doesn’t mean that a wine is not ready to drink before its peak. Great wines are already great before reaching the best version of themselves.

As a reference on how each wine has its own developing period, I am sharing below an oversimplified view on aging potential. The reference was taken over better quality wines from the indicated regions or made from the indicated grape varieties. It is important to remember that this depends a lot on the vintage, winemaker, storage conditions, and many other factors. Those were taken from Jancis Robinson “The Oxford Companion to Wine”.

Current Trends

With the improvement of production methods and ever-changing consumer preferences, producers are shifting the profile of their wines to adapt to those swings. More traditional producing regions such as France and Italy have been tweaking their production, creating wines that don’t require too much cellar time before they are drinkable.

In Bordeaux, as an example, Saint Estèphe has been incorporating more Merlot into its grand vins to make them more approachable. This is a change in their style as Saint Estèphe wines are known to be quite austere in their youth.

In Italy, Barolo is one of the most classic examples of a wine built to age. It requires at least 3 years of aging process (or 5 if reserve) before it reaches the market. Meaning that if you look at your preferred wine store now, the youngest vintage of Barolo you will find is from the vintage of 4 years ago. Besides, it has a developing potential of a couple of decades.

The “Barolo Boys”

There is the famous story about the “Barolo boys”, who created a revolution in the 80’s in Piemonte. Elio Altare and a few of his friends stepped a bit over the feet of tradition when chasing their dreams. Their goal was to improve the quality of Barolo wines while reducing the aging needed to have it drinkable. Spoiler: they introduced the concept of production for quality over quantity, by reducing the yield. But the big step came with them introducing the use of barrique (225 liters) in the process of making Barolo. Not only improving its complexity but also speeding up aging, by increasing the contact surface of the wine with the wood for aeration. Until then it has been used “botti” (400 liters and above).

The innovation movement sparked a revolution putting on debate how much culture and tradition should give space to innovation (at least when it comes to wine).

Aging as part of the experience

There is still a lot of marketing and speculation when it comes to aging potential of wines. The point on the higher price sometimes is, are you ok on paying more for an old wine or you’d rather pay less for a younger version and keep it in the cellar until the right time comes? If it’s all about the flavors and curiosity, investing in an old bottle and drinking it now could be an interesting option (especially if building a wine collection in the cellar is not your goal).

Having said that, it’s not always true that old wine taste better than young ones. They sometimes are just different. Age contributes to changes in the wine that you need to wait and see the results.

Wine appreciation is also about context and environment. The waiting and expectations raised on the process add story and romance to the bottle, besides the tertiary flavors.

Sometimes, the older the vintage the heavier the weight of memories attached to it. And that’s when aging finds a way to add a perception of value that is personal to each one.

Aging becomes part of the value when you bring home a crate of Riesling from your memorable trip to Alsace. You will be reviving the trip every time you open one of those bottles, through the years. Or the crates you bought on your wedding and that you keep on opening at each anniversary. Celebrating, remembering and enjoying how that vintage is evolving over time… together with your relationship.

The evolution inside the bottle and the savoring of the memories attached to it will have a taste that only the patient touch of time can build.

Tag: collecting wine

Taking care of your wine storage