From the Tasting Room - Storing Wine

How long can bottles of wine be stored away?

If you live in an underground cave, you have the perfect wine storage conditions—constant humidity and temperature about 55 degrees. Not many of us live in a cave or even have a wine cellar where we can control the conditions that surround our wine collection. If we are lucky, we may have a basement corner or a stairwell space to keep the wine cool and still. If you are like me, however, I store my bottles under a bed or in a closet. My only display bottles are those I intend to drink within a week or so. Never store wine in a living room book case where the temperature can rise and fall drastically every day, or in the kitchen above the stove.

Always store bottles of wine on their sides. When stored standing up, the cork will eventually dry out and shrink, allowing air into the bottle. Air will cause the wine to oxidize and go bad.

As a general rule drink the white wines within five years of the vintage date. White wines such as Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and Muscat improve very little, if at all, with age. These wines are low tannin, and tannin is the substance that promotes longevity in wine.

Pinot Noir is the lightest and most delicate of the red wines. It is most flavorful in the first 6-8 years of the vintage. The heavy reds—Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, many Merlots and the Bordeaux wines—have large amounts of tannin that is leached from the grape skins, seeds and the oak barrels. These wines may not even reach their peak drinkability for 10-15 years after vintage.

These are rules of thumb for the average wine consumer, and exceptions can be cited in every category. One man told me he had just finished a case of Willamette Valley Vineyards 1992 Riesling after 14 years; it turns out the case had been long forgotten in the crawl space under his house! Another man shared he was still enjoying the 1991 Whole Berry Pinot Noir 15 years after vintage! He finally admitted to owning a wine cellar where he carefully controlled temperature and humidity.

Remember: it is always better to drink a wine when it is still young rather than discovering the wine went bad a year ago!