storing wines vertically?

[GregT]

I think you’re right Chris. I have stacked cases upright for years with no discerneable effect on the corks.

Marcus - the idea of aging slower in a magnum can be accounted for. If the oxygen is from the headspace and the cork, the ratio of oxygen to wine is going to be different - a magnum has the same headspace and neck and same size cork as a 750. So twice the wine, half the oxygen.

[Wes_Barton]

If no oxygen at all enters through the cork then why do magnums age more slowly than 750s? Explanation for that has always been that there is more liquid for the entering oxygen to diffuse through. Or is that a myth too?

Because they start off with less oxygen in the bottle, so start off showing differently.

We did a blind tasting series at Ridge many years ago. One flight, the three wines seemed about 2 vintages apart age-wise from one to the next. All young to youngish, so I thought current release, 2 years previous and 4 years previous. (I did correctly guess they were Estate Cab.) They were all the current release. 375, 750, 1.5.

Oxygen ingress into a bottle isn’t through the cork, but between the cork and neck.

Corks do break down eventually. I wonder if contact with the wine aids this. But, we do know wines with saturated (due to break down) corks are often perfectly fine. We also know that such bottles stood up too long will dry out, allowing massive oxygen ingress. (Or even shrivel and drop into the wine.) We’ve also seen how much a saturated cork can shrivel, like to under half its diameter.

I’m sure young wines are fine being stored neck up for a few years, so don’t worry about that. But, I do store longer agers on their side, or neck down.

[Alan_Rath]

Logically, if you assume that the contact with wine is continually keeping the cork wet, that implies that the other end is continually evaporating wine and it’s wicking though the cork. Cork isn’t like a napkin where that might happen.

Exactly. A BS myth/conventional wisdom that needs to die. And even if there is some validity to it, the idea that a few weeks or months standing up could do damage do a cork is ridiculous.

As Greg points out, if keeping the cork wet is important, that means liquid must be slowly wicking through the cork. The fact that great old bottles have little ullage tells us this can’t be true.

[Alan_Rath]

If no oxygen at all enters through the cork then why do magnums age more slowly than 750s? Explanation for that has always been that there is more liquid for the entering oxygen to diffuse through. Or is that a myth too?

Because they start off with less oxygen in the bottle, so start off showing differently.

A good bottling line shouldn’t allow enough oxygen into the bottle to matter anyway. I think the better explanation is that you have twice the volume, but the same cork size, so whatever does get in over time is acting on twice as much wine. Also, if there is any contribution from the glass surface contributing to aging, the surface-to-volume is less for a larger bottle.

[Philip_Ente]

One take on the subject:

https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2018/06/storing-wine-on-its-side-is-bullsht-says-scientist/

Hi Kelly,
Not sure I agree with this.
I’ve been invited to dinners with well meaning people who opened very great wines they were given as presents maybe five years ago that they stored vertically, at room temperatures. The corks were completely dry and crumbled. The fills however were not too bad off. One of the responders to this article mentions the same dry cork experiences.
I think I’m better qualified than most people to conclude that this is not a science. The five minute lecture on corks my friend gave me that day was more based on his experience and intuitions, and what he was taught by previous winemaking generations of his family. He travels every year to Spain to hand pick from the cork sources.

from a scientific basis, perhaps the humidity is indeed extremely high at the bottom of the cork, but how well does humidity diffuse throughout the cork?

[John_Morris]

from a scientific basis, perhaps the humidity is indeed extremely high at the bottom of the cork, but how well does humidity diffuse throughout the cork?

I think Greg and others have given the answer to that above: It doesn’t diffuse in a sound cork because the cell structure isn’t porous.

[John_Morris]

I assume now that horizontal storage was at first a practical convention. All ideas about how it affected the enclosure came after that.

You can store a lot more bottles in a confined space of an old cellar by laying them on their side and stacking them after all than you could standing them up.

It’s only after cardboard boxes came around that storing and shipping bottles vertically is even a thing.

I’m not sure that’s necessarily true. It may be convenient to stack bottles on their side against a cellar wall, but you can store bottles upright and put boards over them and layer another set of bottles on top. I’ve seen that in wineries.

One advantage I can see of storing bottles on their side at the winery is that you’d quickly identify those with really bad corks that seep!

[BenjaminL]

I’ve begun stacking the wines I seal with wax upright. Ethanol is an organic solvent- corks are organic material- makes sense that contact would speed degradation.
Furthermore I don’t want the flavor of the cork augmenting the flavor of my wine. I’ve spoke with some winemakers who like the flavor of a nice cork. It becomes a different conversation when you realize cork contributes flavor.

[GregT]

Furthermore I don’t want the flavor of the cork augmenting the flavor of my wine. I’ve spoke with some winemakers who like the flavor of a nice cork. It becomes a different conversation when you realize cork contributes flavor.

Man that’s a whole nother convo! Don’t even start!

John - the problem with putting a board on them, etc., is that not all bottles are exactly the same height. In addition, you can’t really see those in the back whereas if you have them only one deep, you can see every bottle. But it’s a pretty interesting idea and I suppose you can minimize those negatives. Anyway, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that suggestion anywhere! Very creative!

[Wes_Barton]

A good bottling line shouldn’t allow enough oxygen into the bottle to matter anyway. I think the better explanation is that you have twice the volume, but the same cork size, so whatever does get in over time is acting on twice as much wine. Also, if there is any contribution from the glass surface contributing to aging, the surface-to-volume is less for a larger bottle.

Eric’s subsequent (years later) explanation for why those particular current release bottles showed so differently was the relative wine to headspace ratios, re oxygen.

Another way to look at that is that on a typical bottling line the bottles get sparged, then have a little time and movement before getting filled. With the same internal neck diameter the same amount of oxygen will get in. Where the wine is being violently sprayed in would be relatively free of oxygen, but there would be less, probably much less than half, in that area of a mag relative to a 750.

Of course, there is cork variability to confuse things. There’s also the fact that many wineries hand bottle their mags, so the methodology can be quite different. Gently filled, so the absolute necessity to sparge isn’t there. They might not be equiped to hand sparge, so it might not get done. But, if it is done, and there’s reasonable quality control, the wine could get less oxygen exposure than on a bottling line.

[Chris_Seiber]

Yet another wine-related thing that “everyone knows” which, under actual scrutiny, has little to no evidentiary basis.

Perfectly said.

It would be cool if there were a wine mythbusters lab out there that would test these things. It would be fascinating to actually know the answer (or at least what experienced tasters think after blind comparisons) about sideways v upright, storage humidity, storing in light versus dark, differences in storage temperature, travel shock, and other things.

[JDavisRoby]

What about screw caps stored upright?

[J_a_y_H_a_c_k]

Maybe the changes involved could only be perceived by someone like him or may only take place in the more delicate wines such as Burgundies.

I would say no to both of those. If he can perceive the changes, so can other people, and they can’t because there are no changes, and Burgundy is no more delicate than anything else.

Logically, if you assume that the contact with wine is continually keeping the cork wet, that implies that the other end is continually evaporating wine and it’s wicking though the cork. Cork isn’t like a napkin where that might happen.

Nor is air coming into the bottle, unless you have compromised corks. The position of the bottle is immaterial.

There have been studies in Australia from the 1990s that demonstrated the fallacy of most cork myths. More recently, at a convention, Vance Rose, director of sales and marketing at Amorim Cork said “No oxygen enters a bottle through any form of natural cork from the outside.”

If you look at the cellular structure of cork, it makes sense. It also makes sense that the liquid in the bottle doesn’t need to touch the cork to keep it moist, because the cells are made of waxy material that’s waterproof. That Burgundy guy was just wrong, but he had probably believed that all his life and it’s more comforting for people to continue believing things than changing their minds.

But how do you explain the increase in ullage over time? It’s not like the ullage is a vacuum or at a lower pressure.

[Alan_Rath]

Yet another wine-related thing that “everyone knows” which, under actual scrutiny, has little to no evidentiary basis.

Perfectly said.

It would be cool if there were a wine mythbusters lab out there that would test these things. It would be fascinating to actually know the answer (or at least what experienced tasters think after blind comparisons) about sideways v upright, storage humidity, storing in light versus dark, differences in storage temperature, travel shock, and other things.

There is. But a lot of folks still don’t accept the conclusions

Putting a stake in the heart of "slow ox"

The myth of travel shock

[Alan_Rath]

If you look at the cellular structure of cork, it makes sense. It also makes sense that the liquid in the bottle doesn’t need to touch the cork to keep it moist, because the cells are made of waxy material that’s waterproof. That Burgundy guy was just wrong, but he had probably believed that all his life and it’s more comforting for people to continue believing things than changing their minds.

But how do you explain the increase in ullage over time? It’s not like the ullage is a vacuum or at a lower pressure.

Poor corks.

[Cris_Whetstone]

I assume now that horizontal storage was at first a practical convention. All ideas about how it affected the enclosure came after that.

You can store a lot more bottles in a confined space of an old cellar by laying them on their side and stacking them after all than you could standing them up.

It’s only after cardboard boxes came around that storing and shipping bottles vertically is even a thing.

I’m not sure that’s necessarily true. It may be convenient to stack bottles on their side against a cellar wall, but you can store bottles upright and put boards over them and layer another set of bottles on top. I’ve seen that in wineries.

One advantage I can see of storing bottles on their side at the winery is that you’d quickly identify those with really bad corks that seep!

Sure you “can” do this. It seems fun to try but incredibly impractical and pointless.

Now what wineries have been doing since long ago as evidenced by their actual cellars is bottles on their sides. That’s how they stack most easily and conveniently. Not to mention stable and safe.

[Otto_Forsberg]

Are we having this discussion again? The last thread about this exact same topic was discussed not earlier than last October: Upright or on its side: A Theory - WINE TALK - WineBerserkers

There was quite a bit of debate there and the previous thread about the subject and especially Ben Mandler’s response near the end of the thread was very informative about the diffusion of oxygen and permeability of the cork I encourage everybody to read.

[Otto_Forsberg]

Oh well, maybe it would make more sense to just quote it here for the ease of read.

Nice thread. I think there have been lots of good points raised, especially about “common knowledge”. But…

A few points on diffusion:

1. The fact that the headspace of a wine is at 99% humidity does not mean that the base of a cork in an upright bottle is kept as moist as one lying down. It is not, and that has serious implications for the cork, as Larry has alluded to earlier in this thread.***

2. Corks ARE permeable. With the exception of native metals, almost all natural substances are permeable (for what it’s worth, I used to study the permeability of rocks and I can tell you that those are much less permeable than cork but they are still permeable). Corks have low permeability, but both liquids and gases will pass through them over time. That is why headspace increases with age - and not just because of channelization due to shrinkage in the cork, though this does increase the rate of evaporation substantially.

3. Corks in a low humidity environment will dry out and shrink over time, creating gaps and channels that increase their permeability and thus increase the likelihood of oxidation. We’ve all seen this in badly stored bottles, right? Horribly shriveled top of the cork, saved in some (sadly rare) cases by a wet lower half of the cork that retained some structural integrity due to contact with the wine keeping it moist. That’s one of the reasons why the humidity of wine storage is important.

Combine 1, 2, and 3 and you have a sound rationale for keeping wines on their sides to keep corks moist. Having said all that, cork is much more resilient than we give it credit for, the permeability is low, and if your external environment is not too dry then having moisture enter the cork from the base is not as important. My estimation, based on corks I have seen in bottles of different ages, is that 5 or 10 years of upright storage is, in most situations, totally fine, maybe even more depending on the cork, but that when you start talking about multiple decades, you have more risk. This risk is alleviated if your storage conditions are good.



*** If anyone wants more nerdy details about why the base of the cork is not as moist in an upright bottle…essentially, the boundary condition of the diffusion problem is moved from the surface of the wine (in an upright bottle) to the surface of the cork (in a horizontal bottle), making the concentration gradient at the cork interface much larger, which substantially increases the diffusion rate of liquid into the cork (Fick’s first law: J =D*dc/dx). Since corks are permeable, this means more liquid will enter the base of the cork over time. All other things being equal, this would actually increase the rate at which the headspace increases compared to an upright bottle, but the drying out of cork in an an upright bottle makes it more likely that you will form shrinkage channels, which increases the diffusion rate by orders of magnitude and thus outpaces the evaporation rate in a horizontal bottle.

[John_O]

My cellar is a combination of bottles stored on their side and upside down in boxes. Started about 12 years ago and I’ve never had any leakage. I do often get a lot of gunk on the cork and around the opening. It’s remedied by not putting the cork near anything that can be stained and cleaning the inside of the neck with a damp paper towel.

[Nate_Simon]

It has always seems to me that if corks are indeed permeable, you should be able to pull a cork out of a bottle of (red) wine, cut the cork in half, and see red wine staining the interior of the cork.
This, in reality, does not happen.