Cellaring Wine and Aging Wine

Cellaring Wine For Aging Red and White Wines

Cellaring wine, wine storage, and aging wine, are all terms used to describe keeping a wine until it matures. A key element to keeping wine at its peak for your tasting pleasure is cellaring wine in a location with a consistent temperature suitable for aging wine.

Any one can have a wine cellar to hold favorite everyday drinking wines. It's important to store wine properly. Any fluctuation in temperatures, unnecessary movement, or excessive amount of light can stress wine and shorten it's shelf life.

Vintage Harvest Wine Racks is a modular wine storage system that allows the non-contractor, the average man or woman, to create their own wine rack design and then install that wine cellar in their own home.

This image consists of several modules, however, Vintage Harvest Wine Racks can be customized to your needs.

Proper Temperature for Storing Wine

The proper temperature helps a wine age. If you are cellaring wine it should be kept at a very level 55°F for it to age slowly. If the wine is kept at 70°F or higher, the wine will age too soon and the flavors will be less complex and not as good. It's important for the wine to be cellared properly to keep it from spoiling over the years so that it will still be drinkable.

Drink Now or Cellar For Aging

Cellaring wine is usually not the first thought when buying a wine for dinner. The general consensus among the average wine drinker is that they buy wine to drink with their next meal. Most of us buy a bottle of wine to be uncorked and served with dinner the same evening.

For the majority of wine that is perfectly fine. Many of the varieties in our local wine shops do not benefit from aging. Generally speaking, if a bottle is less than $25 it doesn't need aging.

High quality wines benefit from aging, as do certain varieties of wine from some of the well-known wine regions.

Some Regions Producing Age-worthy Wines Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhone, Sauternes, Italy, Germany, California and Australia.

Cellaring Wine for Your Pleasure

The so-called "experts" may know when a wine has reached its peak, but for many of us that leaves us wondering if the bottle of wine we just purchased should be cellared or is it ready to drink now.

Here is where the answer might be a personal preference. If you just purchased a wine that you enjoyed but want to know if it is agewothy, you can go to the wine shop and ask the merchant for advice. Many wine stores have knowledgable sales people who can answer many of your questions.

You have the option of purchasing and storing a few bottles of that particular wine for a special occasion in the future and you may just love the balance of flavors when that occasion arises.

Many wine experts will recommend a specific year to drink a wine that is considered age-worthy. There are vintage guides available that give you the information you need to know how long to keep a particular vintage and when it is ready to drink.

These recommendations are an educated guess as to when a particular wine will be in perfect balance (when all the chemical compounds work together to balance the fruit, acidity, and tannins).

Aging Wine
Evaluating Wine Terms
Evaluating Red Wine Terms
Evaluating White Wine Terms