Wine Storage

My question is mostly regarding getting the most out of wine fridge/cooler/cellar space.

How long do you have to be planning to hold a wine to decide to keep it in a wine cooler instead of just storing it at room temp?

I would focus not so much on your own plans on holding, but rather the types of wines you would like to drink, and whether those tend to be better with some “bottle age”. The vast majority of wines are drinkable at purchase or shortly thereafter. You need not dedicate much space to them, and can keep them in a cooler area of your house/apartment.

If you fancy buying “age-worthy” wines, then you might want to consider a cooler. But ‘age-worthy’ means several years, not just 1 or 2, which you can again handle at room temperature, although that may age the wine a bit more quickly.

that’s definitely a good suggestion to keep in mind I think. no point in buying a bunch of bottles that need to be cellared for 10 years if you don’t like the taste of old wine!

thanks for the reply!

I thought I’d add a couple of thoughts to this

  1. Wine cooler units can be used in a couple of different ways. One of those is for longer term storage, while the other is keeping the wines at serving temperature which is why you have multi zone options on some units.
  2. It doesn’t take long to kill a wine with heat. If you have a look through the main forum, you’ll find a lot of angst and trepidation about shipping in hot weather leading to raised corks and dead wines.

Having noted those two things, storing wine at home without any sort of refrigeration probably won’t do much damage in the short term as long as you have good insulation that prevents major temperature fluctuations. I have a wine fridge at home, but I keep my quaffers just in a cupboard but I haven’t had one where I’ve thought it was heat effected

I have a 30- bottle wine fridge in my apartment and a wine storage locker. Anything I know will need at least a couple years of cellaring to mature goes in the storage locker, anything less I generally put in the fridge. If I know I’ll be drinking something within the next few months I have some wine rack space at room temp in my apartment. But I agree, first see if you like mature wines before splurging on a high-capacity wine fridge or a locker unit.

I’m more inclined to store by grape variety. Cool weather grapes in wine cooler and warmer weather grapes at room temperature .

I find any basement to be just fine for storage of any duration. Some friends insist upon 55degrees, which basically equates to refrigerated. Seems like a waste of resources to me. If you’re in an apartment, that poses different challenges. If not, stick it next to the cold cinderblocks downstairs.

I have a small wine fridge and a basement.

The problem with the basement is that is has a garage door - as the basement technically is built into the side of a hill. It is literally a drive in garage/basement. During the winter the temperature is relatively stable but during the summer it fluctuates, especially if my husband is has the door open while working on his car.

Is it worth trying to section off the furthest recess of the basement (away from the door) and turn it into a wine cellar?

I like to age Champagne, Bordeaux, Tannat, Barolo and so forth. Right now I am limited to only 5-10 years because of my storage conditions.