Protecting your $$$$$ wines

Do you guys and gals do anything extra to protect those high end bottles in the cellars?
For example, Saran wrapping the bottle?

I keep a handful of pricey bottles in the styro shippers. It paid off when 2 bottles of Pandora fell about 6 feet onto the concrete floor at my offsite storage and survived. Most of the others are in thick corrugated cardboard boxes that are taped shut and labeled.

No. Saran Wrap? Is that like a wine condom?

FirstBottleWines.com sends each bottle wrapped in plastic. I’ve left it on so far… but cut the top so air can get in (I’m not sure if that’s necessary…?)

Why leave them wrapped at all?

It protects the label from damage, wrinkling, mold, falling off. I don’t think it affects the wine for better or for worse.

I’ve given the saran wrap idea a little bit of thought but decided against it. I think if any moisture gets wrapped in with the label, it will cause mold / mildew to grow faster as the moisture can’t leave the surface of the label. Probably good for short term protection (shipping?) but not so great for long term storage?

Yea the Saran Wrap thing is odd to me. I just had a case of Magdelaine shipped from UK pre-tariff, and all of the bottles came in a wood box and individually wrapped. They were actually wrapped in a Fort Knox level of protection, like not easy to remove at all. I removed two of the wrappings and then just stuck them all in my wine fridge. I will admit to liking how clean/pristine the labels are, but at the end of the day, the label doesn’t really matter all that much.

I get a lot of such Saran wrapped bottles from fine wine shops in HK & Singapore (most of whom I am sure are supplied from London). Always found that tacky - not unlike putting/keeping plastic covers on furniture. I was told that such is done as “trophy” bottles with pristine labels can command materially higher prices from certain buyers/collectors.

I used to always strip the wrapping off my bottles before putting the bottles in a cav; that is, until I got tired and decided to no longer bother.

I guess the label matters more if you hope to someday sell the wines than if you someday hope to drink the wine.

Yeah, if you aren’t going to be selling them, it doesn’t make any difference, does it? Protect them from what?

Anyway, to answer your question, when I get one in saran, I leave it that way. I have never taken any steps to “protect” any of them. Labels get scuffed and sometimes torn; I don’t GAF (it’s also worth saying that I have few if any “$$$$$” wines. A few $$$ bottles maybe)

Protect like insurance?
What else do you need to ‘protect’ from? You don’t drink labels, you drink the wine.

I have a friend who will only buy pristine labels. Not because he wants to resell. But because when he shares the wine with friends / others, he wants the wine to show it’s best and the bottles to look their best. I’ve tried to talk him out of this, no luck. I assume there are others out there with the same presentation desire?

He should keep them in conditions antithetical to fungus—hence warm, dry, and well lit. [snort.gif]

I don’t wrap my wines but I don’t bother removing the wrapping if they come that way either.

Inertia triumphs over all.

Not with wine bottles, no. As others have said, we’re not too worried about keeping pristine labels. If they come to us wrapped in plastic, we’ll usually leave it on, though.

With old expensive whisky, however, we often wrap the top with parafin wrap to help slow down evaporation and protect against leaking if they have to travel. Stoppers that are made to come in and out are shorter and, like corks, deteriorate over time. We also do this after opening on expensive bottles we don’t intend to drink right away, especially the kind in decanters which have very little seal.

It’s not as easy as that. I’m now close to 4k bottles in my cellar and sometime ago I realized that I won’t be able or willing to drink all bottles. So that’s a first reason to protect more expensive bottles. A second reason is: taste changes. You might be a big fan of the bold Napa wines when you’re 30. But will you still be a fan at 50 or 60? By protecting the label you can more easily sell your wines (and fetch higher prices) when your taste changes.



It’s not as easy as that. By buying pristine labels only you increase the probability that the bottle is good because only wine freaks which bought and stored wine with the intention to sell it one day, are protecting the labels (and store the wines properly). So the wine label gives you another hint about the quality of the juice insight (but of course fill level, capsule are more important).

A pristine label is not a universally reliable indicator and gives no clue as to whether a wine was stored at 55 degrees or 75 degrees. A moldy label may also be a sign of better storage in a high humidity environment.

Moldy labels don’t look good on Instagram.

I can’t tell the difference between moldy and pristine labels in a blind screen-licking/sniffing comparison.