I have a problem at one of my off-site storages. I noticed about a year ago that an owc had light green mold over a large part of the wood. I took the bottles out of the OWC and I didn’t think much of it until the other day, when I noticed a different owc that had developed the same thing.
I suspect that the humidity being too high might be a culprit, unless anyone here has a different experience or thoughts? Also, how harmful is this mold? Do I need to be concerned about the bottles at all? Most of my bottles are in 12 pack cardboard verticals on their side.
Can I wipe down the wood with a clorox wipe or something? OR should I just trash the wood?
Mouldy bottles and labels are a sign of a good cellar! However the cardboard might be a problem - I’ve experienced tainting problems as a result of the stacking things inside an OWC, which were made of cardboard.
Alex – It is potentially a problem because it can spread and it’s not healthy to breath the mold. I would take out all the affected OWCs and make sure you get it under control. Mold seems to love pine.
(In France, they wash off those moldy bottles before they label them! You can imagine the squawk if you opened a case of Margaux and it was moldy.)
I had a serious issue with mold in a friend’s very humid cellar two years ago. It really took hold in some OWCs – inside and outside – and on some wooden pallets I’d made to keep cases off the ground.
I sprayed the OWCs and pallets with Moldex and sat them in the sun. I also sprayed the porous ceramic floor. The Moldex smell wasn’t great, but it didn’t linger, and the mold was threatening to get out of control. It worked. My friend’s room has no more than a normal musty basement smell now.
However, some mold was also transported to the undercounter wine cooler in my apartment on bottles from my friend’s cellar. The fridge has had a mold smell ever since. (I didn’t want to use the Moldex on that very enclosed space.)
And the mold also had infected some cardboard boxes that I moved from my friend’s to my own cellar a couple of months ago. This time I used Concrobrum Mold Control, which I was told contains bacteria that eat mold. A quick, light spray of the concrete floor that looked most affected seems to have stopped it dead. Six weeks later, I don’t smell mold there. However it works, I’m sold. The product is pretty much odor-free.
I would remove the wooden cases and I wouldn’t worry about much else. But if you want to remove the mold, plain old Borax that you can buy at the grocery store works. Vinegar and hydrogen peroxide also work. And sunlight seems to work as well. Won’t help in the cellar, but might help clean the boxes.
Maybe a thought for preventative maintenance aside from replacing the cardboard boxes (I do the same at my off site storage) - Use moisture absorbing packs in your locker, the kind you would use in a boat to prevent mold and mildew. Toss a few in your locker and replace every few months.
