The Auswine Forum

Morning forumites
I live in Brisbane and my wine fridges are bulging at the seams, however wife is belting me about not having adequate stocks of pinot. Under our house in summer is relatively cool (22-24) and I was thinking of buying a doz pinot and either 1) storing in polystyrene for drinking over the next 6 months or 2) letting them sit at cold temp in a conventional fridge and remove the day before drinking. Which of these do you think is the more acceptable, will storing in cold temp 3-5 deg adversely impact drinking if I remove and bring back to temp in a controlled way?
thanks in advance
Craig S

Under the house in QLD sounds a bit warm for my liking. Whites and Pinot are most affected by less than ideal cellaring.

Storing in the fridge may work better but the pretty cold temperatures might be an issue, and I have found getting the drinking temperature right when thawing tricky - either too cold or too warm. Maybe buy a Pinot and stick it in the fridge for a week, then take it out and see if the theory works for you.

Another option might be to let the shop cellar it for you - assuming you are buying current release Pinots, maybe buy as needed ?

Chris H wrote:Under the house in QLD sounds a bit warm for my liking. Whites and Pinot are most affected by less than ideal cellaring.

Storing in the fridge may work better but the pretty cold temperatures might be an issue, and I have found getting the drinking temperature right when thawing tricky - either too cold or too warm. Maybe buy a Pinot and stick it in the fridge for a week, then take it out and see if the theory works for you.

Another option might be to let the shop cellar it for you - assuming you are buying current release Pinots, maybe buy as needed ?

If you are serious and the wine fridge is full why not get off-site storage. There are several providers at reasonable prices in Brisbane. Try Kennard's at Milton or National Storage in the Valley or you could go the whole wine ark thing if you are loaded and don't care what it costs you.

I've had my wine at both Milton (until it flooded in 2011) and then moved to The Valley. Both offer 24 hour access and other than flooding at Milton I was very happy with both...

Wineaway is also an option located at Bowen Hills. Used them for years and they provide outstanding service.

We keep all our wine in fridges. The red fridge sits at around 13 to 14 and the whites at around 8 to 9.
Occasionally there are a few reds in the white fridge for a few weeks over summer and all I do is pull them out about 30 to 60 minutes before drinking to warm up a bit. Room temperature at our place is usually over 30 in the summer and I'm not keen on wine that warm.
Summer in Brissy can get real hot as you know and I think storing wine at a lower temp than normal is going to be a lot better than allowing it to heat up unnecessarily and risk ruining it. Especially if it's some wimpy import that wilts over 18. (Is that screams of derision I hear?). You may have to buy less food to allow some room in the kitchen fridge for wine.
There are a few articles on the net somewhere about this if you want to spend some time searching - I read a bit about it a couple of years ago and went with the theory that the cooler the temp the longer the wine will last if it's for drinking in the short (6 months) term.
Don't forget that this summer is meant to be a hot one...

8-9'c sounds very cold. I've never heard any recommendation below 11'c before, even for whites.

And as for this summer being a hot one, I'm no expert, but they can't even predict more than 5 days ahead with much accuracy. In fact, I noticed they re-evaluated their prediction for 2 days ahead by 2'c, so even that isn't rock solid forecasting. Not sure if it is at all possible to make predictions like that. I could well be wrong, though....

Yep, 8 - 9 is fairly cold but we buy whites for immediate consumption and like them new and fresh so keeping them at a lower temp holds them better. There is the odd exception where we'll go for a Semillon with a bit of age but I don't want to cellar wine for too long in case I drop dead and miss out on drinking it.

The El Nino system is meant to be here this summer so that'll make it hotter. Have a look at this web page: http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/outlooks/ ... ew/summary

calm wrote:Morning forumites
I live in Brisbane and my wine fridges are bulging at the seams, however wife is belting me about not having adequate stocks of pinot. Under our house in summer is relatively cool (22-24) and I was thinking of buying a doz pinot and either 1) storing in polystyrene for drinking over the next 6 months or 2) letting them sit at cold temp in a conventional fridge and remove the day before drinking. Which of these do you think is the more acceptable, will storing in cold temp 3-5 deg adversely impact drinking if I remove and bring back to temp in a controlled way?
thanks in advance
Craig S

Have you followed the temp on a gauge to see what the variance is like under there?
I must've read every conceivable article on the web regards cellaring temps and the one point hammered home
is variance. I can picture Marco Pierre White saying it, 'Variance, variance, variance,"!
If your under floor temps are nice and constant and don't exceed 24-25 then I'd go under in foam boxes.

Constant 25'c may not harm wine (though I'm really not sure that's true), but it will speed up development (x4 if some sources are to be believed.)

The most common reason given for avoiding variations in temperature is due to corks constantly being sucked in and pushed out with long term consequences. With screwcaps that's not an issue.

I just don't see cast iron certainty behind commonly held views on 'perfect cellaring conditions.' I do see people justifying their own practices....

Thanks all
Feedback appreciated

Many of my older wines were stored in a cupboard under our open Queenslander for many years and I haven't struck too many bad bottles. Might be luck, but I reckon wine is tougher than a lot of people think! Of course if I owned a shiteload of Latour I wouldn't be so blase!

Cheers

Michael

If some white wines where kept In the fridge for a few months, than back into the cellar. Would this effect them much for long time cellaring ?

Hunter wrote:If some white wines where kept In the fridge for a few months, than back into the cellar. Would this effect them much for long time cellaring ?

With screwcap I wouldn't be too worried
with cork I would be hesitant, especially something with age
going from a fridge at 2-4deg to a passive under the house cellar that is likely to be sitting around 20deg, is a big jump and I would be worried about how that might push the cork up and lead to seepage.