Wine storage

The short answer is, it depends.

Where do you live, do you have basement with an unheated area that has a steady temp? What are you plans for long term storage? (are those $100 bottles for driniking in 20 years or when the occassion arises?)

If you have a place for storage in the house that is great. If you, like me, live in a hot climate, Florida, even a small collection will benefit from a cooler. What kind and size depends on your needs and how large a collection you will have (it will grow to the limit of your storage if you are like most people.)

Hope that helps a bit starts a dialogue.

Joseph Coulter Joseph Couter cruises and vacations

What Joseph said! I read question, formulated response, basically saw he had written same thing!

I live in the Seattle area. We don't have a basement. I keep my wine in the unheated garage in the winter. During our short summer the temperature in the garage can get into the 80's, so I move the wine into the coolest part of the house. Perhaps it would be better just to leave it in the house year-around.

I have considered buying a refrigerated wine cabinet or an old refigerator. At this point, I can't imagine my collection growing to more than 100 bottles. And I probably won't keep more than a handful for more than 10 years.

Consistancy is better than fluctuation. Cool is better than hot....

It is temperature fluctuation that does ill things to wine. If you store wine into the 80's the time frame for aging is sped up. Assume that a house if constant temperature is kept is 75º F so expect a 50% speed up in aging. If I had more than 5 $100 bottles I would have wine storage as having those age prematurely would nullify the investment.

Thanks for your advice. Now I need to research which wine storage system to buy, or should I pay a monthly fee to get a storage locker?

Consistancy is better than fluctuation. Cool is better than hot....

I never considered this when I started buying and drinking wine. I would usually buy a couples bottles and drink within a week or so. I do store in closed cases (dark) lying horizontally. I suppose I would budget $500 for the ability to store my wine.

Try checking here for info on units:

Try checking here for info on units:

Thank you again for all your help. I've seen Eurocave advertised in Wine Enthusiast, looks like a good unit.

Assuming an Arrhenius expression on the kinetics, I'm going to disagree with you on your assumption that the aging will speed up 50%. I haven't worked out the math yet, but my experience tells me it won't equate so nicely.

As to your ROI, if the qualifier for ROI is getting the highest amount of pleasure from drinking said aged $100 bottle, reaching that ROI in 10 years is a better use of your money then 20 or more.

But even in 10 years with fluctuating temps or high temps the wines may be toast. Actually, with 80º temps the speed up of aging may be more than 50% and small storage for 30 bottles or less is not that expensive.