Negative effects of refrigerating Champagne, other wines?

WINE TALK
1

My passion and spontaneity for drinking Champagne has resulted in me storing 2-3 bottles in my refrigerator, sometimes for more than a few days. It is certainly more convenient to just open and pop as opposed to doing an ice water chill for 30 minutes or so, but Im wondering if the additional cold temp and over time is having any adverse influence on the wine. Ive seen tartrate crystals form in the bottom of white Burgs and chards under refrigeration when not evident beforehand and am not sure if this is to the detriment of the wine or not. Im paying attention to wines that Im familiar with that have not been stored in the frig and have not yet noticed a difference. Any thoughts?

2

Zero, except for slower aging.

3

The vibrations from the refrigerator might shake the bubbles out of solution.

4

Tex,
Is this part of your attempt to lighten the mood with humor?!? neener

5

Of course.

6

I agree…no effect whatsoever, unless your fridge is so cold that it’s partially freezing the Champagne, which seems unlikely if you’ve got any unfrozen milk (or other liquids) in your refrigerator, as milk freezes at a higher temp than wine.

7

I do this also (reserves in the fridge)
mostly sparkling wine sometimes champs
if I know I’ll be getting into it soon(no long term storage)
A much better method than the bottle in the freezer
that you forget about! [swoon.gif]

Cheers
Rip

8

I am more concerned about whether you can safely take them back out and put them in the cellar… I assume it is fine and have done it with no consquence- it isn’t like I am taking them back to room temp… but with the experiences with beers- seems there is detriment to bringing them out of the fridge, I was curious if that was ever an issue…

9

Blake - my basement and cooling units keep everything around 53 degrees, so I just pop n pour straight from the cellar. I prefer “warmer” serving temps for Champagne though, if the wine is refrigerator cold it always comes off tight and linear to me.

I don’t think there’s any negative short-term effects for keeping a few bottles chilling in there though.

10

I think the bigger issue than the temperature is the light. You might try to keep it in a “darker” section of the fridge, but other than that it should be fine.

11

The light in the fridge is only on when the door is opened so I don’t think there is any more harm than normal.

12

yeah, but with my teenage son, that’s most of the time . . .
alan

13

Are you SURE? I keep trying to check. neener

Seriously, to the OP, the biggest danger is corks drying out due to low humidity compared to wine cellar but if the bottles are staying in the fridge for, say, less than a year you should be fine.

14

An interesting question. At lunch in Burgundy once I heard someone in the trade who has a first-rate palate comment that the white we were served tasted like it had been in the refrigerator for an extended period. I thought it was interesting that he thought there was a particular effect.

15

Scott- I`ve had similar concerns about returning a bottle to the cellar after refrigerating it since there is a disparity of quite a few degrees.

Peter- As with you, I prefer to drink Champagne a little warmer than ice cold as the flavors are somewhat muted; however, for me, I find it better to start out a little too chilled and follow it into a warmer state as opposed to taking it from the cellar and by the time I`m at the end of the bottle, it is too warm.

Randy- I store the bottles on their side in the frig order to avoid the corks drying out.

Thanks to all for your input.

16

I believe the relative humidity in a standard fridge is much lower than in a typical wine storage unit. Over an extended time, the cork might dry out, get brittle and allow slight seepage. No clue how long that would take.

17

While I don’t think keeping a bottle in the fridge for extended cellaring is optimal, I wouldn’t worry about it too much especially if you are only talking a few months.

My biggest concerns with Champagne are heat and light so there are far worse options than a fridge for storing wine.

In the fridge, I would be more worried about vibration than humidity, but even the vibration may not be that big a deal; I honestly don’t know. The environment in a bottle of Champagne is very different than a still wine and humidity is not nearly the same issue. The CO2 in Champagne will keep the environment moist enough such that the cork will not dry out. Numerous studies on this have been done and clearly show that storing a bottle standing up vs. on its side makes no difference. In fact, you can probably make a case that storing the bottle standing up may be a bit better as it lessens cork contact which some believe could eliminate a bottle or two from being corked (never seen data on this and the number of cases where this could make a difference would be very, very tiny as most bottles are likely to be affected regardless of storage method IMO).

I agree that big temperature swings are bad, but if it is something you are going to drink in the short term, a trip from cellar to fridge to cellar to fridge to opening is not going to do much damage. I have no clue exactly how much impact this would have (assuming cellar temp is around 60 degrees), but I don’t think it would be that bad. Still I wouldn’t do this with bottles you may want to age long term.

18

[scratch.gif]

Even left out in the “light” of the house if one is drinking the bottles in, oh, a year or so, the light won’t be an issue.

No harm in any way keeping it in the fridge. I’m not sure I’d store it there but bubbles don’t last long in our fridge…

JD

19

That takes care of the part of the cork directly in contact with wine but the lower relative humidity of a refrigerator vs a proper wine cellar or passive basement will dry the cork and make it brittle and potentially cause leakage.

Not an issue for the time frames I believe we are talking about though.

20

BRAVO!!! [rofl.gif]