Home Cellar Tips

After spending hours trawling through cellar doors to find wines that will dance upon your palate, the last thing you want is their optimum flavour to be destroyed while you wait for the perfect dinner party to crack open a special bottle.

We have provided you with tips from the experts to ensure that your wine is stored correctly.

Cellars

As one of Australia's leading wine writers', James Halliday suggests, wine will continue to mature once it's bottled so proper storage is essential to help it undertake the ageing process in the best conditions possible.

If you want to go all out you can build a specially constructed and insulated room with wine racks and temperature control to store your collection.

But if you're more up for a more modest affair, there is nothing wrong with building a cellar in a cool, dry and dark place that has a constant temperature and does not encounter any vibration.

Halliday maintains that as long as the conditions are right, a home wine cellar can range from being a shoe or hall cupboard, corner of a garage, stairwell or closet.

Conditions

Darkness

Wine needs to be stored in the dark. When light hits wine bottles, it penetrates through and can lead to premature aging. Ultraviolet rays and warmth alters and damages wine's flavour so it's important that your bottles are kept well away from sunlight.

Vibration

Continuous movement impacts upon your wine as vibrations prevent the normal sediment in an ageing wine from settling. Regular house vibrations are not so much a problem but exaggerated, constant vibrations are. Keep your wine away from machines or motors such as your fridge or kitchen appliances.

Humidity

Humidity is needed to help keep the cork airtight. When cork dries oxygen can seep into the bottle and age the wine, altering its flavour.

The ideal humidity level is 70 to 75 per cent. Hardware stores often sell humidity gauges so you can determine what condition your wines are in. To create more humidity you can fill large dishes of water and place them in your cellar.

Be careful and avoid your wines from being subject to too much humidity however. The problem with excess humidity is that it encourages micro-organisms to grow, which can cause it to age prematurely or spoil the wine. Too much humidity can also spoil the labels. Using a household fan will help to prevent excess humidity.

Temperature

Halliday believes that temperature must remain consistent to ensure that your wine's flavour maintains its optimum.

Fluctuating temperatures are harmful as it causes your wind to contract and expand, encouraging oxidation.

The ideal temperature to keep your wine is 15 degrees Celsius. However because Australia's climate changes, Halliday suggests you store your wine in a cardboard carton, which acts as a good insulator. You can also wrap your bottles in sheets of newspaper to further protect it from temperature variation - as well as light.

Racking

You can buy wine racks that are custom-made to fit into the space or cellar you have in your house. You can also buy modular units from specialty shops. Wine racks can be made from many different materials such as wood, metal or hollow cement blocks. Racks should be designed to store bottles on their side, as this helps keep the cork moist and prevents oxidation.

Monitoring your wines

Every wine has its own lifespan and will peak at different times.

Wines go through youth, maturity and old age with the maturity-stage being the best time for consuming. Depending on the wine, a wine's mature stage could be very brief or quite prolonged. The only way of gauging what stage your wine is in is to taste-test. Feel free to open a bottle from your wine selection and taste it to determine whether it is ready for drinking or not.

Advantages of having a wine cellar

• Matching suitable wines to your cuisine is a lot easier if you have a well-organised cellar.
• You can purchase wines whenever you want knowing there will always be space.
• A well-stocked cellar is perfect for when unexpected guests drop by.
• You can buy wines when they are still young if you have the perfect conditions to age your wine yourself.
• Wines retain their best flavour as you have created conditions to store them correctly.
• Classic wines appreciate in value so if they are stored well you have a great investment.
• Your own satisfaction at having collected and consumed fine wine.