Did you know that every 1 in 3 Americans are estimated to enjoy a glass of wine? This isn’t surprising considering how popular wine is worldwide and how long humans have been consuming it. However, one thing that many wine lovers fail to take into consideration is how to store wine properly.
If you are a wine lover and you want to enjoy the perfect glass every time at a wine bar, then you need to learn a few things about storing wine. Below you can find 6 do’s and don’ts about wine storage and how to serve the perfect glass. s
Don’t Store in Refrigerator
When it comes to storing wine, one of the biggest mistakes that you could make is storing it in the fridge. Temperature is an incredibly important factor you will need to consider if you want to store wine perfectly.
You should avoid storing wine in the refrigerator because wine and cold don’t go so well together. If you store wine in the refrigerator, the cork might shrink, letting air into the bottle and ruins the wine. This is worse than leaving it in the freezer since the wine will expand and potentially break the bottle.
Don’t Leave the Lights on
Another thing you should avoid is leaving your wine in a place where it can be affected by sunlight and certain lights. Why? According to Wine Cellar HQ, UV rays from sunlight actually causes wine to age prematurely; in other words, it won’t taste great when you do finally open it. This is why wine comes in darkly colored bottles, to protect it from the sunlight.
More than this, certain lights emit small amounts of UV radiation, such as fluorescent light bulbs, which basically have the same effect. So if you will leave the lights on, try using incandescent light bulbs instead.
Don’t Store Upright
Depending on the cork used for your wine, you might want to consider storing your wine on its side rather than in an upright position. Of course, if your wine bottles use a plastic cork or a screw cap, this doesn’t really matter.
You shouldn’t store wine upright because when it is stored this way, the wine cannot touch the cork, which allows it to get dry. Unfortunately, when the cork gets dry, it can begin to shrink, and this eventually lets air into the wine and ruins it.
Do Pay Attention to Humidity
In addition to the temperature, humidity also plays a large role in how well you store your wine. Humidity and temperature differ quite a bit, even though people use the words interchangeably mistakenly. Humidity refers to the amount of moisture or water in the air, whereas temperature is how hot or cold the environment is.
If you leave your wine in an environment with low humidity levels, the corks will eventually begin to dry out, leading to shrink. This, as mentioned above, lets air into the wine and ruins it. Conversely, if you are trying to sell the wine or keep it looking great, high humidity levels will cause the labels to peel off.
Do Use a Wine Cooler
One thing that you could do if you want to prolong your wine collection and ensure that all of your wine is perfect when served is to buy a wine cooler. But, unfortunately, not everyone has a space in their home suitable for storing wine since the conditions are often hard to meet.
Using a wine cooler, on the other hand, will allow you to store your wine safely and effectively. Depending on the unit you buy, you might get access to humidity controls, UV blocking glass, and more than one temperature zone for different bottles.
Do Serve at Best Temperature
Finally, the last consideration you will have to make when storing wine would be the temperature it is served at. It would be rather pointless to go through all of the trouble to store wine at the perfect temperature if you aren’t going to serve it at the perfect temperature.
This is the easy part, though, since all you need to do is either bring the wine up to the correct temperature or bring it down. Age is one of the most important factors when serving wine, whether it is white or red, etc.
