The Auswine Forum

not ideal, but as long as it is fairly constant temp should be ok. Presume it is under cork (less of an issue with screw caps), daily fluctuations in temp will expand and contract the cork which can allow more air into the bottle and can cause premature oxidisation over the long term. I had a friend store a bottle of Hill of Grace in direct sunlight 20 - 30 for five years, despite my howls of protest. The wine was excellent when opened, but could it have been better?
But given the price of grange I would be seeking an alternative. Also if it is in air conditioned office it may be too dry, but would be ok short term

Another consideration you may not have considered is that in an office environment air conditioners are usually programmed to work around business hours. Hence the temperature may greatly exceed 20 degrees on the weekend over the summer period.

If it is 20 degrees or thereabouts I wouldn't worry about it, for short-term purposes. Long-term, best to stick to lower temperatures of course.

Look at all the wine retail outlets, even the big ones that are air conditioned - no way most of them are under 20 degrees, and who knows how many of them maintain air conditioning overnight. My local wine store (that sells some Wendouree, Rockford, JJPrum etc) have the sliding door wide open at the moment and it is frequently 25+ degrees outside! (I don't buy any of their expensive wines because of this, however their wines can't be too bad or else no one else would buy).

If you look at most European countries, most of their stores and supermarkets don't bother with temp. controls, even in the summer months.

In Melbourne I can only think of ONE retail outlet that has decent temperature storage, and that is only for the $100+ wines sitting in the temperature-controlled pod...all the rest are at room temperature (+/- air conditioning).

Alistair wrote:I have bought four premium bottles of red wine (including Grange) for an anniversary gift in January and am currently storing them in a draw at work to avoid detection by the other half.

I put a fridge thermometer in the draw this week and discovered it was 20-21°. I appreciate this is not ideal, but is it bad enough that it will compromise the wine over the next few months? Or will that be ok, considering they will then be stored in a climate controlled environment for the foreseeable future?

Also dude - you spent $2500+ on wine, it would probably cost you $8-10 a month to have these professionally stored...the cost of 2 coffees.