When I keep a bottle of wine at home, how can I know for how long it's still good? Which wines stay good for a long time and which don't?
Wine storage is impacted by several factors including:
- Storage Environment
- Grape varietal
- Vintage
- Wine production
Storage
If you want your wine to last as long as possible… store in a cellar at 58F. If you’d like it to gradually mature, a better temp is around 60F. The two biggest enemies of wine are heat and change. First, keep wine below 70F and second, avoid dramatic and frequent temp change. Slow seasonal change is acceptable for instance in the northeast US basement temps often vary from 58F to 68F between winter and summer. Despite a 10 degree swing, the change is slow and over the period of one year.
Grape Varietal
Without writing a long essay on storing wine, recognize that some grape varietals age better than others, but also realize there are exceptions to every rule. Some red wines like cabernet sauvignon can age well over 10 years and sometimes 20, 30 or even more years. Some Cabernet sauvignons won’t age at all. The same holds true for White wines, where some Rieslings can age for decades while most sauvignon blancs should be drunk the first year.
On average (and I hate to say average… because if you buy Corbett canyon on average your wine doesn’t age!), most red wines benefit from a few to several years in the bottle while whites are best consumed young.
The best way to learn what wines age well and what wines don’t is to drink them. If the wine seems to cause your mouth to pucker when you drink it… chances are it is “too tight” and needs some time to open up. To determine if it will increase with age can be assimilated by allowing it to remain open in a decanter. After 30 minutes to an hour, take a sip… if the wine improves… rest assured that it probably could have spent some more time in the bottle maturing.
Vintage
Every vintage is different so the quality of grapes will vary, hence so will the wine and its aging characteristics. Read up on the vintages that are said to be age-worthy and use that as a guide… but again, your best method is to taste the wine periodically. I usually buy several bottles and over the years break them out and determine when I should drink it again next! With time you’ll know what you like… Wine is a personal preference and you might enjoy a wine that is either older or younger than another’s. Zinfandel is a perfect example where some like them very young… others after about 5 years and still others that think 7 years is ideal.
Production
The people making the wine ordinarily know who they want to sell to. Some want to target the mass consumer and therefore make a wine that is ready to drink right out of the gate, while others want to make the wine in an old world traditional style and hence try to produce it in a fashion that has years and years of life… whatever mother nature had planned!
I hope that helps!
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I'm not clear if you're talking about wine that has been opened or not. If opened, I'd say it won't stay good overnight if you don't use something like wine preserve. You won't get sick, mind you, but the air will get it and start the process of turning it to vinegar.
If unopened, the key is to store it in a place where the temperature doesn't fluctuate a lot and stays relatively cool, such as abasement. You also don't want it exposed to light. That will help it keep.
Some wines are more fit for long-term aging, typically complex wines like a Bordeaux that benefits from the aging process.
David http://cookingchat.blogspot.com
Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open.
The quality of the wine will determine how long it can be kept for. I always ask for the advice of an expert on such matters when thinking of stocking up on wine.
Which hasn't been very often recently!
older the better.....
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