How long can you store wine badly?

In a particularly cruel twist of fate, just as I became interested in wine I moved out of a house that had an actual half-height cellar and into one that has an extreme lack of storage space, let alone anywhere suitable to keep wine.

The best place is the under-stair cupboard which seems to be fairly cool and slightly humid, although it does have a small window and I've yet to see how cold it gets during the winter. However there's only room in there for a very few bottles because it's full of all the stuff we can't store anywhere else.

Which means that for now - shock, horror - I'm going to have to start keeping wine in a rack on top of the fridge freezer. I know this is a really bad place, but I don't have any choice. The questions are ...

1) How long can I keep wines up there before they start to deteriorate?

2) Will reasonable quality cheap wines keep longer, or perhaps show less deterioration than good wine kept up there?

In the long run we're planning to have an extension built, at which point I can hopefully get a small wine storage cabinet in the new kitchen. I be interested to know if there are any other options for keeping wine though, considering this is being built from scratch. A proper spiral cellar is going to be too expensive but I have wondered about having a small underfloor "locker" space built in.

The maddening answer is that it depends on the wine.

A robust red and, better still, port or Madeira may hold up very well but a delicate white or Chamapagne could go off quite quickly, particularly if there is light, as well as heat, exposure as is probable in a kitchen.

In my passive cellar where temperature fluctuates with the seasons between 13° and 20° (but no more than 18° this cold summer), my friends with temperature controlled cellars say that my champagne, for example, is definitely less fresh than theirs.

[Robin Garr]

The maddening answer is that it depends on the wine.

The even more maddening answer, Tim, is that it seems to depend on the <i>individual bottle</i>!

My general experience is that wine is more bulletproof than people think. I recently opened a decidedly modest 1988 California Pinot Noir (Gavilan) of the that had been stored badly since the early '90s. It was startlingly good. On the other hand, I've had some four-year-old Cotes du Rhones that should have been fine but that had lost all their fruit. The recently discussed horizontal of 1998 Chateauneuf-du-Papes at MoCool caused a lot of controversy because most of the wines were seriously browning and showing oxidation, yet many of those had been kept in temperature-controlled cellars.

There's certainly no disputing that careful storage at 13C (55F) is best. But I've had enough good experiences with "bad" storage that I've concluded wine in general - especially sturdy reds - is more bulletproof than it's given credit for.

[Robin Garr]

1) How long can I keep wines up there before they start to deteriorate?

2) Will reasonable quality cheap wines keep longer, or perhaps show less deterioration than good wine kept up there?

Matt, like all of us, you'll do what you have to do. But that being said, almost any place in your house would be better than the top of the fridge. The kitchen tends to be the warmest room in the house, and the busiest. If there's any way you could stash a wine rack in a dark corner, even under a table, you'll be better off.

I don't think you can draw a firm line between cheap and expensive wines in terms of keepability (is that a word?) although it's certainly true that in general, the more ageworthy wines are the more expensive wines. To make a long story short, if your conditions are very poor, it's probably more prudent not to attempt to keep expensive wines, simply because you'll have wasted more money if they go 'round the bend.

But see also my note to Tim: If you can find a spot that's even halfway decent for storage, then you can certainly keep sturdy reds for several years without worrying about damage. Perhaps by then you'll have come up with a better solution.

Matt, like all of us, you'll do what you have to do. But that being said, almost any place in your house would be better than the top of the fridge. The kitchen tends to be the warmest room in the house, and the busiest. If there's any way you could stash a wine rack in a dark corner, even under a table, you'll be better off.

Plus a fridge generates a fair amount of heat, that rises. Hopefully you can find another spot. When signle I had a small 1-bedroom for years, just kept the "drink in next month" bottles on closet floor, luckily I have a basement at my office.

I'd agree with Tim and Robin that the delicate to robust range tends to go:
Champagne/sparkling
Dry whites
off-dry whites
light reds
big reds
Port/Madeira

Not very common, but I'd stay away from bottles bragging of no/minimal sulphur. In addition to Robin's point re not risking expensive bottles, my guess is more industrial bottlings are most likely to be vigourously filtered and stabilized, so maybe a tad more "durable." Which is good as they are less likely to see controlled shipping.

Mattehr - Having had such conditions as you mentioned and not contradicting anything that has already been said, I'd use my watch and not a calendar to determine when the wine begins to deteriorate when stored on top of the fridge.
Perhaps the problem is the solution - since it reads as if you do not have a great many bottles, buy a small fridge, even one the size of an end table. I've know people who have done this and set it on it's warmest setting which is still quite cool and vastly cheaper that the same item made specifically for wine.
Good luck. (I am always available to jump the pond and help you drink bottles about to go over the hill.)
JP

All the above are correct. Primary is to find another place. My daughter has an apartment in NYC and space is at a premium. She stores in wooden cases under the bed. This would be far better than on top of a freezer or refrigerator.
Walt

Thanks for the information.

It's not good news though. Almost anywhere accessible downstairs can be got at by my baby daughter. A wine rack won't fit under the sofa. I could solve both problems by keeping them in a crate but that is going to scratch our lovely oak floorboards every time I pull it out to get a bottle.

Upstairs there are various places I could keep it, but they're going to wake the baby whenever I go to fetch a bottle.

There's no more room in the kitchen for another fridge. The kitchen is tiny. That's why we need an extension .

Can I get away with storing it upstairs and keeping a few bottles at a time above the fridge - for no longer than a few weeks - so I've got a little selection on hand when I want to pour a glass?

[Robin Garr]

Can I get away with storing it upstairs and keeping a few bottles at a time above the fridge - for no longer than a few weeks - so I've got a little selection on hand when I want to pour a glass?

Matt, I really don't think that would be a problem. We've been answering your questions in the context of storing or cellaring wine for the longer term. While the top of the fridge is a very poor place to keep wine for years or even months (and I got a great laugh out of the line about using your watch rather than your calendar ), you really don't need to worry much about wines you intend to drink over the next few days or weeks. Just don't fall into the trap of putting a wine on the fridge top intending to drink it next week, then six months pass and it's still there. Administer it aggressively as your "tasting queue for the week" and you'll be fine.

I'm glad to hear some wines hold up well in rather harsh storage conditions because I have several bottles of vintage port in the basement where the temp fluctuates some. I was going to ask this question on a new post but saw this and it kind of goes hand in hand. How do you know if a wine is worthy of putting down (vintage port aside)? Do you rely on the maker to let it be known? publications that mention it? own knowledge and if so what tells you if is will age well? Thanks.
Tom

Matt, I really don't think that would be a problem. We've been answering your questions in the context of storing or cellaring wine for the longer term.

Thanks for the clarification. I did understand that, but I was a little confused by what "longer term" meant - weeks, months or years. I had assumed I'd get away with fridge-top storage for a good few months before I started to have problems, but it sounds as though that might be troublesome, so I'm glad I asked.

At the moment I'm still tasting my way round various regions/grapes/styles to find out what I might be interested in storing for the longer term. By the time I've reached that stage then hopefully I'll have a solution in place.

I also got a good laugh from the watch/calendar comment .

Matt, I have storage issues as well. We have the space, but controlling the temperature is the problem. My husband bought me a tall (about 2 1/2 feet) narrow wine chiller for Valentine's Day this year. It takes up very little space. It only holds 12 bottles. But I keep my good wines in there and my cheapies I keep in my bedroom where the temperature stays constant throughtout the year.

Good luck. I know it's a challenge.

My husband bought me a tall (about 2 1/2 feet) narrow wine chiller for Valentine's Day this year.

Nice. Could you point me at a brand/model?

The recently discussed horizontal of 1998 Chateauneuf-du-Papes at MoCool caused a lot of controversy because most of the wines were seriously browning and showing oxidation, yet many of those had been kept in temperature-controlled cellars.

Robin,
Do you think that there's any chance of a premature oxidation phenomenon in CdP akin to that seen with white Burgundies? '96 and '97 were weak enough years that no one expected great longevity from them, so '98 would be the first year where such a phenomenon would be evident. Maybe we should start a Wiki

Mark Lipton

It's not good news though. Almost anywhere accessible downstairs can be got at by my baby daughter. A wine rack won't fit under the sofa. I could solve both problems by keeping them in a crate but that is going to scratch our lovely oak floorboards every time I pull it out to get a bottle.

That is exactly the issue my son has. He solved it by constructing (with a bit of help from his dad) bins that would fit under his living room sofa and under his bed. The under sofa is nothing more than a piece of plywood with a strip of wood at each end to keep them from rolling off, and a piece of old carpet glued on the bottom. The underbed is similar, but with higher end pieces to allow him to go two high, staggered, and with no carpeting since his bedroom is carpeted. If memory serves me correctly, he can store 46 bottles under his bed, and 11 or 12 under the sofa.

under no circs should you store the wine where you've suggested. even the bottom of a cabinet or on the floor is better. don't you have any friends with real basements?

The short answer is at least six months. I can say that with authority because we moved in 2005. In the course of that move we stored a ten cases wine collection that was about half rotation and half agers for six months in our daughter's basement. You may think that a basement is a good place. Not our daughter's basement, particularly in the summer of '05 when most of the Northeast was as hot as hades. The temperature in the basement hovered near 80 degrees F most of the time.

We didn't loose any wine. The rotation is long gone, and we have consumed about half of the agers including the Warrabilla PS last night; all without a hicup.

Matt
The good news is you've got a good 6 months to come up with a solution.

If you have garage space, then some wine fridges will work in that environment. There's even the option of buying a 2nd hand commercial unit from auction and doing a minor / major DIY job on it. I've got an interesting book by Tyson Stelzer where he describes converting a wardrobe into a wine fridge! Does the DIY angle appeal to you?

A more mainstream option is to go for commercial storage - I'd expect there was something in Bristol considering that city's wine heritage. It's a pain to have to organise your drinking by what you remembered to pull out of storage, but it's an option. Maybe friends/rellies have suitable storage area & could store the wines for you (on promise of the odd bottle in payment).

The wine society have their knockers, but their storage & delivery options might be very attractive.

... and anyway, who says the vacuum cleaner has to go under the stairs! Sounds like you need to liberate a corner of that space

regards

Ian

Like everybody says, it is a matter of individual situations. But I can tell you that I destroyed a rack full of Bordeaux by putting a dehumidifier in the room, which raised the temperature into the 80s for just a week. At first the wine actually tasted better than usual, but quickly deteriorated. So, if you cook a wine, you should drink it immediately, in case it is one of the bottles that won't take the heat.

On the other hand, I have stored wines for years under temperatures that fluctuated between 60 and 72 degrees f. The wine was fine 20 years hence.

Matt

If you have a reasonably modern fitted kitchen, you may find that a good bottle storage location is behind the kick-boards under your units. It is usually quite cool there as it is close to the ground and insulated from the room by the boards.