MICHAEL GREEN’S WINE NOTES #223

Is it necessary and/or desirable to store bottles of wine horizontally?

The current issue of a magazine publishes a full-page advertisement for a restaurant with a cellar that has “some of the rarest and most adored South African wines, including a unique collection of rare wines unavailable anywhere else”.

What interests me, however, is not the advertising text but the photograph which accompanies it. A wine expert of some kind stands in what is presumably the cellar, almost surrounded by shelves with about a hundred bottles of wine that are visible in the picture. And all of them are standing vertically.

Which re-opens a question I am often asked: Is it necessary and/or desirable to store bottles of wine horizontally?

Yes, it is, and for good reasons. The main object is to keep the wine in contact with the cork and to keep it from contact with the air. Fresh air is lovely (in small doses) but not for wine. Wine that is exposed to the air tends to oxidise and lose flavour and quality. The purpose of the cork is to prevent that exposure. And corks that are dry tend, over a long period, to shrink and lose their sealing power in the neck of the bottle.

The obvious conclusion is that if you wish to store wine for any appreciable period you should put the bottle on its side. Whether this applies to wine with screwcaps, which are being used more and more in South Africa and elsewhere, is a moot point.

The sensible approach, I think, is to store all bottles of wine horizontally. It can’t do any harm and it’s a good habit to develop. Wine storage in general is quite a complex subject. The temperature of the cellar or storage room is of importance. The ideal temperature is reckoned to be about 13 degrees Celsius, the temperature of the caves in which wine is sometimes stored in France. Broadly speaking, anything between 7 and 18 degrees is good.

That’s easy if you live in Toronto or Auckland, but Durban seldom has a temperature of below 18 degrees (one of the many things I like about our town). If you have an air-conditioned cellar or room the problem is solved, but air-conditioning is quite expensive in terms of electricity bills and most people don’t want to “waste” it on bottles of wine.

The answer is to try to maintain an even temperature if your wine room has no air-conditioning. The room should be on the cool side of the house or flat, well-ventilated, and reasonably dark for most of the time and free of smells like kitchen odours. You can turn on a bright light but don’t leave it on all the time. The vinomaniacs inspect their cellared wines with unscented candles (not bright, no odours).

Humidity is also a factor (a very dry climate can affect corks adversely), but I don’t think it should be a problem in Durban.

If all goes well you should be able to keep a good red wine for ten years or more, and enjoy an improved wine at the end of the road. Don’t wait too long. At least one person I knew had a large collection of expensive wines, drank cheaply to conserve his precious bottles, and died before he got round to drinking them.

And remember, most South African reds are just about ready to drink when you buy them. Research showed that more than 90 percent of all the wine sold every year is consumed within 24 hours of purchase. And the wine industry sensibly adjusted its output to meet the requirement of the market. – Michael Green