The Best Way to store wine | Fine Italian Food & Wine
The best way to store wine? Following you will find general rules that can be followed either if you are talking about a good Italian red
wine or a sparkling white wine or any other. If you want to know how to store wine, read this:
Store the bottles in a dark environment. Especially for those bottles with clear glass. To be sure about how to store wine bottles, you should avoid exposure to natural light, but also to fluorescent light, acts as a “trigger” for oxidative processes and heat degrades the wine quickly. If you do not have a poorly lit closet, at least keep the bottles in a thick wooden or cardboard box.
Keep the bottles lying on their side (even better if with a slight inclination of around 5°) unless it is a wine to be consumed young: for a short period wine the position is almost irrelevant. In a lying on a side bottle the cap remains in contact with the wine which keeps it moist and therefore elastic and with better adherence to the walls of the neck of the bottle, thus reducing the risk of oxidation.
Keep the temperature of the environment as constant as possible, above 10 degrees but not above 18: the optimal temperature is 10-12 degrees for white wine and 12-15 degrees for red wine.
Do not shake the bottles and protect them from the vibrations that stress the cork, reducing its elasticity and thus favoring the penetration of air, the cause of oxidation and also a potential harbinger of bacterial contamination. Furthermore, any sediments could be kept in suspension by continuous movements. Especially if you want to know how to store red wine, this is a fundamental tip.
Keep the wine in a well-ventilated area and away from strong odors of both chemical origin (such as paint, petrol or car exhaust gas) and natural (such as cheese, salami, under-salt fish, onions, etc.) that, through the cap, could contaminate the wine (especially if you have bottled it yourself and the cap is not protected by the capsule).
Last but not least: respect the storage period shown on the bottle label which is the just one for your wine.