The post extracted below, with its reference to 15 year old bottles in great condition which have spent their life under the stairs in Central Queensland made me think about the received wisdom about cellaring conditions.
What studies have been performed (beyond the below uncontrolled experiment) to see what happens to wine stored in AUstralian conditions?
My cellaring conditions are also sub-optimal (my thermometer tells me that the temperature reaches 24-25 on hot days in the summer), yet after five years of cellaring in this way I have encountered very few bad bottles.
Are there any studies that anyone is aware of?
underwraps50
Joined: 20 Feb 2006
Posts: 51
Location: Rockhampton.QLD
Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 7:47 pm Post subject: What a terriffic wine
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Saturday night at home. My night to cook. What to drink whilst I cook. A young fresh red or a lovely aged bottle from the 'cellar'. How about a treat - my last bottle of the '92 Penfolds Clare Estate. All of the other bottles of this lovely wine have opened beautifully and this was no exception. The Clare is a CabSav Merlot Malbec Cab Franc and I bought it in '96 for $16. The Penguin Guide thought it was a 3 star wine that would cellar for 5yrs plus. I think it is a hell of a lot better than 3 stars and it has cellared beautifully for 17years. So much for those that think you can't cellar wine under the internal stairs in this climate (Central Queensland)
It's wines like this that keep me motivated to select good wines to 'cellar' in a hostile climate. I occasionally keep a wine a little too long, like the '98 Annies Lane Shiraz that I drank last Saturday night which was just past its best but still interesting.
Has anyone else had a bottle of Clare recently?
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Cellaring conditions
I don't think any good studies have been done. I think it is mainly traditional teachings derived from collective wisdom, with a few hypotheses to support it. I have a purely passive cellar and have successfully cellared wines for up to 21 years, about 24 from vintage. I don't know if more strictly controlled conditions would have given better results, but this works for me. I don't have ambitions to cellar much longer than that. I still buy green bananas, but buying wines to cellar for 30 years is starting to get a bit optimistic at my age.
"It is very hard to make predictions, especially about the future." Samuel Goldwyn
Dear Orpheus
I live in Yeppoon which is just down the road from Rockhampton and our weather has always been a challenge. I spoke to Tony Kitchener (of Kitchener Wine Cabinet fame) about this a few years ago. He said you need to keep wine at between 16-18 degrees for optimal maturation and that every degree above this ages the wine an extra year e.g., so that if your wine has a normal maturation level of around 10 years and you keep it between 22-24 degrees then it will mature in about 4 or 5 years or twice as fast. I suppose you could get your old Granges and Wendourees to drink within your life time and mature them at a faster rate but you have to be careful of other things.
These are the confounding variables - vibration, humidity, light and the worst is daily variation in temp. You are better off keeping your wine at 24 degrees all the time that having a fluctuation between 12 and 20 daily and of course never let wine temps exceed 42 degrees for more than 20 minutes or you may as well throw it out.
Cheers
Luke
I live in Yeppoon which is just down the road from Rockhampton and our weather has always been a challenge. I spoke to Tony Kitchener (of Kitchener Wine Cabinet fame) about this a few years ago. He said you need to keep wine at between 16-18 degrees for optimal maturation and that every degree above this ages the wine an extra year e.g., so that if your wine has a normal maturation level of around 10 years and you keep it between 22-24 degrees then it will mature in about 4 or 5 years or twice as fast. I suppose you could get your old Granges and Wendourees to drink within your life time and mature them at a faster rate but you have to be careful of other things.
These are the confounding variables - vibration, humidity, light and the worst is daily variation in temp. You are better off keeping your wine at 24 degrees all the time that having a fluctuation between 12 and 20 daily and of course never let wine temps exceed 42 degrees for more than 20 minutes or you may as well throw it out.
Cheers
Luke
If you can remember what a wine is like the next day you didn't drink enough of it
Peynaud
Peynaud
Luke W wrote:Dear Orpheus
I live in Yeppoon which is just down the road from Rockhampton and our weather has always been a challenge. I spoke to Tony Kitchener (of Kitchener Wine Cabinet fame) about this a few years ago. He said you need to keep wine at between 16-18 degrees for optimal maturation and that every degree above this ages the wine an extra year e.g., so that if your wine has a normal maturation level of around 10 years and you keep it between 22-24 degrees then it will mature in about 4 or 5 years or twice as fast. I suppose you could get your old Granges and Wendourees to drink within your life time and mature them at a faster rate but you have to be careful of other things.
These are the confounding variables - vibration, humidity, light and the worst is daily variation in temp. You are better off keeping your wine at 24 degrees all the time that having a fluctuation between 12 and 20 daily and of course never let wine temps exceed 42 degrees for more than 20 minutes or you may as well throw it out.
Cheers
Luke
Yes, that is certainly what I have heard as well.
I don't have much fluctuation of temperature, I've insulated the space that the wine is in, and it is very gradual in its changes, maybe .2-.5 of a degree over a 24 hour period.
My understanding of why that matters is because it causes the cork to expand and contract, which causes oxygenation.
Are you (or anyone else) aware of any other reason why rapid fluctuation is a bad thing?
As for what Tony Kitchener says, I could say "HE would say that, wouldn't he?", but that would be cynical.
I would be interested to know what the evidence to support the claims is. IE, is it based on research/anecdotal evidence/something else?
Not saying it is wrong...
Yeah, I've heard the variation of temp is a problem also with the cork and therefore I would imagine that if you had a cellar of screwcaps the problem may not exist. A few years ago the French also found out that wine that was delivered by trains was more ready to drink (vibration effect). Maybe someone will come up with a device to mature wine quickly so we don't have to wait - no someone already has!
Anecdotally I kept a few hundred bottles of wine here in Yeppoon in the 90's which probably stayed between 20 degrees in winter to 30 degrees in summer. I didn't have any that oxidised but I made a deliberate attempt to keep the age down below 10 years and generally bought wines which were known to need time to mature.
I have a mate who claimed to leave most of his wine in a tin shed at Charters Towers for a year or 2 without too many problems but I wouldn't recommend this.
The interesting thing is that some wines which shouldn't last sometimes do and some that should don't.
Maybe this should be a longitudinal study undertaken by one of the wine colleges.
Cheers
Luke
Anecdotally I kept a few hundred bottles of wine here in Yeppoon in the 90's which probably stayed between 20 degrees in winter to 30 degrees in summer. I didn't have any that oxidised but I made a deliberate attempt to keep the age down below 10 years and generally bought wines which were known to need time to mature.
I have a mate who claimed to leave most of his wine in a tin shed at Charters Towers for a year or 2 without too many problems but I wouldn't recommend this.
The interesting thing is that some wines which shouldn't last sometimes do and some that should don't.
Maybe this should be a longitudinal study undertaken by one of the wine colleges.
Cheers
Luke
If you can remember what a wine is like the next day you didn't drink enough of it
Peynaud
Peynaud
orpheus wrote:
I would be interested to know what the evidence to support the claims is. IE, is it based on research/anecdotal evidence/something else?
Not saying it is wrong...
This is an excellent question. It is such a good question
that I asked it on this or another forum a few years back.
At the time, there were no responses that suggested this has been rigorously studied. I think anecdotal evidence is the answer.
"It is very hard to make predictions, especially about the future." Samuel Goldwyn
The post extracted below, with its reference to 15 year old bottles in great condition which have spent their life under the stairs in Central Queensland made me think about the received wisdom about cellaring conditions.
What studies have been performed (beyond the below uncontrolled experiment) to see what happens to wine stored in AUstralian conditions?
My cellaring conditions are also sub-optimal (my thermometer tells me that the temperature reaches 24-25 on hot days in the summer), yet after five years of cellaring in this way I have encountered very few bad bottles.
Are there any studies that anyone is aware of?
underwraps50
I tend to agree that the obsession with cellar conditions are a little over hyped (at least in NZ). I have a wine cabinet which holds about the best 1/3 of my collection, the rest in ambient auckland heat which at this time of year is not considered ideal. Obviously I choose the coolest and darkest place possible.
From my experience Pinot Noir tends to benefit from the cooler temperatures and no doubt champagne does too but I haven't seen anything in the last decade from my personal experience that underlines ambient storage as a problem generally.
Follow me on Vivino for tasting notes Craig Thomson
If you cant afford a wine fridge and need a good solution for ambient temperture storage, use polysterene boxes that fruit shops get there veges in. They are usually happy to get rid of them. Sort your wine into years of drinking dates, that way you don't have to disturb the ones you need to keep for a while. Although you cant keep them at the "ideal" temp at least you can stop the rapid temp variation. Most of my wine is kept this way and I get about 1.5max temp variation each week depending on the temp for the week.
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Shiraz Shane
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2008 2:26 pm
I agree!!
I have maintained a non-ideal cellar in Brisbane for the last five years and have had no problems. Temperature varies up to +/-6 degress per day and gets up to 28 in summer and 15 in winter. I also store some wine in a wine fridge and haven't noticed any difference between the same wines stored in fridge and ambient. I agree with Luke, some wines that are only supposed to cellar for 5 years can be brilliant after 15.
Also, I have noted HUGE variations between the supposed experts and their recommended cellaring potential for the same wine.
I think the trick, as someone mentioned is buying a dozen (or more) of your favourite wine and then start drinking one or two every year after five years. Screwcaps I think will minimise any additional cellaring risk.
Also, I have noted HUGE variations between the supposed experts and their recommended cellaring potential for the same wine.
I think the trick, as someone mentioned is buying a dozen (or more) of your favourite wine and then start drinking one or two every year after five years. Screwcaps I think will minimise any additional cellaring risk.