The question comes up often: how do you keep a bottle so that it stays beautiful for years? The answer is simpler than it seems, once you know wine’s real enemies: heat, light and vibration.
« A well-kept wine keeps its soul. A badly stored wine is vinegar crying out. »
Temperature above all
This is the most important factor. An ideal cellar stays between 10 and 15°C, no higher. A wine that gets warm ages too fast and loses its nuances. Worse, swings in temperature work the cork, and in the end air gets in.
At the estate, our cellar stays at 12°C all year round. Without a cellar, a dark, low cupboard away from the radiators already does the job. Avoid the fridge for long keeping: it is too cold and too dry.
Darkness
UV light is wine’s enemy. That is why bottles are tinted, especially the dark glass used for reds. Daylight, and fluorescent tubes even more so, damage the aromas.
Keep your bottles in the dark: a cupboard, a cellar, or simply a cardboard box. Wines for long ageing, such as a sweet wine or a Riesling, are particularly happy in their original case.
Humidity: the happy medium
A cellar that is too dry dries out the corks. A cellar that is too damp spoils the labels. The ideal is between 50 and 80% relative humidity. In a dry loft, put down a bowl of water. In an underground cellar that drips, let the air in.
Lying down or standing up
For wines you mean to keep more than three or four years, lay the bottles down. The cork stays moist, does not dry out and keeps its seal.
Young wines, to be drunk within the year, can stand upright without harm.
No vibration
A wine that is constantly shaken tires and ages before its time. A busy road against the wall, a washing machine in the basement: keep your bottles away from that kind of jolting.
How long to keep it?
It all depends on the wine.
- Light whites and rosés: one to two years, to drink young.
- Fruit-driven reds: two to five years.
- Reds for ageing: five to twenty years, sometimes more.
- Great sweet wines: twenty years and beyond.
Trust the back label and the winegrower’s advice: we always state the period when the wine shows at its best.
The yearly look
Once a year, take a look at your cellar. Is the cork holding? No leaks? If all is well, leave the bottles in peace. “Touch too much and you spoil it,” as they say round here. The finest bottles are often the ones you half forgot in a dark corner and rediscover ten years later.