Did You Know?... About "Cooked" Wine

You might think the idea of a wine cellar is just an affectation of the rich, showing off how much wine they have by setting aside a room for it. That may be the case, but there is also an important reason for it. All wine, including red wine, should be stored in a climate controlled environment to avoid "cooking" the wine. The ideal temperature for storing wine is around 55 degrees. If a wine is exposed to greater heat, the wine will taste more like cooked than fresh fruits. Most of the time it is a flaw, but in a few rare cases its the goal of the winemaker to create those flavors, like in Madeira.

How Long Does an Open Bottle of Wine Last?

With the holidays, it's easy to open a bottle of wine for guests, but not finish it. So it's important to have a general idea of how long a wine will stay fresh, after it's been opened.

A young, crisp white wine has a lot of volatile flavors that will dissipate quickly. Properly resealed and stored in a cool place, most can probably survive overnight, but the wine can get "flabby" if stored for much longer than that.

An aged white wine should be a bit more balanced, with a backbone of oak. With the crispness already aged out of the wine, it can hold up to a few more days in the fridge.

Much in the same vein, a young red wine has a bit more stable flavors, and will last a few days when stored properly. An aged red wine might hold up even longer.

Dessert wines have remarkably stable flavors, and can store for weeks in optimal conditions. Useful, as its a bit more difficult to drink an entire bottle in one evening without the help of a large group of friends.

While most connoisseurs would insist that a wine should be drunk right away (after its given the appropriate amount of time to breathe), most of us will still enjoy that bottle the next night, or the night after, and there is no sense in letting a good wine go to waste!

How-To: Store an Open Wine Bottle

It's not always feasible to finish a bottle of wine in a single sitting. In addition to knowing how to store your unopened bottles, it's important to know how to store the one's you've opened, so you can enjoy them later.

• The cork: Often, the cork can be flipped over and pushed back into the bottle. This can be very useful for resealing a bottle of wine while you enjoy the first glass, or even overnight.

• Stoppers: There are many commercial stoppers available, from basic corks to complex sealing devices. The tighter the seal, the longer the original flavors of the wine will last.

• Improvised stoppers: Most improvised solutions will do nothing to stop air from getting in, and won't really help preserve your wine. The more air that gets in, the quicker the wine spoils.

How-To: Age Wine

Most bottles of wine are meant to be drunk right away. The flavors are thought to be at their best as soon as the wine is bottled, and won't gain anything by extra time shelved. Some premium wines, however, are designed by the vintner to spend extra time in the bottle, to give the flavors the chance to mellow and blend. The wine will be nearly undrinkable (meaning it is likely off-balanced, with one note like acid or bitter being overly pronounced) when released. It is expected that the buyer will set it aside for years. In this case, the buyer would purchase several bottles and open them one at time over decades to find when the wine was "at its best." This would not be obvious to the palate of the average consumer, but wine critics like Robert Parker are in business to give recommendations on when a newly released wine will reach its best age. Wine like this is intended to be cellared, to protect it from the changes in temperature and lighting which alter the flavors. For the mega-serious wine buyer (investors and the like), wine-specific storage facilities exist to take care of those concerns. For most of us, this is not really within the scope of how we enjoy our wine. 

If you are purchasing a quality wine (more than $100 a bottle) for an upcoming special occasion, you might speak to the wine seller to ask whether this wine is meant to be aged further, or whether it is ready to open now. "Will this be good to drink now?" should answer any concerns. For most palates, this doesn't matter. And for most of us, a $20 bottle meant to be drunk now is perfectly good enough.

How-to... Store Wine

People store wine for a variety of reasons. Maybe we found a wine we loved on a wine tour, and bought a case. Maybe friends brought too many bottles for a housewarming party. And maybe we invested in some age worthy wines, and they need to be "cellared." While the last one requires a bit more effort, especially for those of us in cramped NYC living spaces, there are a couple of simple rules anyone can follow, to help preserve their wine.

• Store bottles on their side
• Store wine in a cool, dark place

The most important thing to remember about storing your wine is its position. To preserve your wine, you need to store it on its side. This keeps the cork from drying out and allowing too much air to get into the bottle, oxidizing the wine.

Ideally, wine should be stored at cool temperatures, around 55 degrees Fahrenheit, out of direct light. Too much heat will “cook” a wine, and too much sunlight or direct artificial light will change the flavors. If you are unable to store it in a cool location, it should at least be protected from fluctuations in temperature. This means you should avoid storing it on top of your refrigerator, where the heat rising from the motor will swing the temperature of your wine frequently.

Most wine made today is meant to be consumed right away, within a year or two of when it was released. Of the finer quality wines, very few whites are meant to be aged, though some of the heavy bodied white wines can improve with age. Strong, tannic reds can age for several years, especially Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.

Since many people don’t have access to temperature controlled cellar spaces to store their wine collections, wine fridges make an excellent alternative. A small under-counter wine cooler can easily store 30 to 40 bottles at optimal temperatures and humidity.

For those that have the room and the space, a wine cellar can be a thing of beauty. Racks of wine bottles and cases in a finely crafted stone grotto, with its own tasting room is something we can all strive for, but for now I think I will have to just grab a bottle from the rack on the wall, and enjoy what I have.