The Auswine Forum

You pay big money to store your wines in a climate controlled, wharehouse environment. Glossy brouchures make mention of constant temperature and the ideal humidity.

When a northerly wind blows in summer, you can rest assured your wines are being maintained in perfect conditions of around the 14 degrees and 65% humidity.

I found tremendous satisfaction in pulling the cork recently, on a 93 Cyril Henschke that had been purchased from cellar door and then kept for near ten years in a "perfect" environment. The cork was opaque purple red at the base, zero seepage trails. Perfect! The wine was pristine, the fruit so very fresh.

Possible cork spoilage aside, I am happy with the results of professional storage but......

After 10 years of using numerous facilities ( four in fact ) some Dodgy Brothers practices I have come accross are:

1- One facility where wine was stored communally would see your stash moved constantly.

2- Another facility painted the floors of the wharehouse. Including the cellar area with the aircon & humidifier system running. Staff at this facility were adament there was no problem in doing this.

3- The coupe de grace of one facility was to have its aircon system turned off in winter. Semi-diurnal variation of temperature in winter is significant I explained. Not as significant as summer they countered. Cheeky for a facility "advertising" environmentally controlled conditions.

Fraud or ignorance these practices?

I think wine forums are too soft on these storage facilities. Any suggestion of a winery not replacing TCA affected wine cops the wrath of the forum comminity; to great affect.

Maybe time to straighten out some of the ignorance and malpractice in the professional wine storage community.


I no longer use storage facilities 1, 2 or 3. Facility 2 evolved into a good operator and Facility 3 never did understand why my wine was removed overnight!

Great post guest.



Is there any other anecdotal evidence of poor practices from some facilities?

I have a beauty that I have been meaning to post for some time.

I store with Kennards in Adelaide, and about a year ago, I was in the cellar trying to retreive some stock for drinking. This is always painful as the box you need is always at the far back on the bottom, which usually requires moving all your wine out of the locker to gain access.

On this occassion, I had to do just that, and as Kennards had cottoned onto how profitable all this wine cellaring business has become, had crammed in more lockers everywhere so that it is now a rabbit warren.

Anyhow, moving 50 or so cases, I ran out of room and had to start piling cases all around the place. I got to the wine, repacked my locker and left the premises.

Twenty minutes later the phone rang and it was a Kennards staff member informing me that I have left a case of wine outside the locker. As I was half way home to McLaren Vale, he said that he would put it into the Kennards Staff locker until I picked it up.

Three months went past and I had completely forgotten about this case of wine until I next went to Kennards, which is when I asked about the case of wine.

"What case of wine" was the reply


After much furore and trying to track down the missing case, it was never found, and furthermore, the staff (including the worker that initially called me) have denied that there was ever a case of wine that they found.

Now I certainly accept responsibility for 1/ being slack enough to leave a case of wine outside the locker in the first place, and 2/ being slack enough to forget about it for three months in the second place.

I do not however, accept responsibility for the case going missing once I have been informed that the facility is holding it for me.

Unfortunately this case of wine contained some fantastic stuff that I had picked up throughout France in 1999 including several Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, Vintage Banyuls, Port, Sauterne, and Maury etc. All irreplacable IMO and with great sentmental value.

Lesson learn't.

I am still with Kennards simply due to necessity, but a cellar in my next house is a damn certainty!

Cheers
Glen

With Moss Wood, Wendouree, Kay Brothers and Dead Arm in the holding facility and me overseas, I am going to excuse myself to the bathroom.

Not feeling too well!

Jamie

I was wondering why they were selling these for $10/bottle last week

Glen G wrote:Jamie

I was wondering why they were selling these for $10/bottle last week

Hah, yeah I bought them all. They said it was due to the owner not returning calls or paying his bills and so they had to get rid of it fast. They couldn't get rid of it at $10 so they dropped it down to $5. What would you do?

Had an embarrassing experience at my storage facility a few months back. I expressed concern that the climate control system was not switched on and suggested that it was unprofessional, even though it was winter. As we all know, constant temp is the important thing, not just low temp. I was reassured that the air conditioner was not necessary for most of the winter due to the nature of the building in which the wine was being stored.

This did not pacify me and I became a little irate. Anyway, I was led to an office where I was shown a digital thermometer reading in the cellars. 14.5C, and 10.4 outside.

It was explained that, even if they wanted to, they couldn't make the air-conditioner come on to show it was working as it only kicks in if the temperature goes below 14 or above 16.

They were very understanding but I must admit to feeling a little sheepish!

Hello Guest

Sounds as though we have had similar experiences. I do suggest you are quite brave though, becoming irate with people who handle your wine. I am a little paranoid and tend to quietly vote with my feet.

I recall marvelling at the old Roman chalk mines in Reims, France.Transformed into great champagne cellars, the subterranean vaults providing a "natural" stable climate.

Are these conditions possible above ground in Australia and without artificial climate control? With semi diurnal temperature variation in winter, some days, as great as summer. Drying winds off the continent playing havoc with humidity levels aswell.

I believe our big, brown land ideal for producing great wines, but not cellaring them without artificial climate control-constant temperature and humidity. I have for near ten years paid for the services of wine storage facilities that advertise and deliver climate control.

An evolving industry open to short cuts, the advertising sometimes exceeds the delivery.

I am not sure if Facility Number 3 on my list is the same as yours Guest, but let us revisit.

Number 3 advertised climate contol, but had this turned off in winter. The facility was not subterranean and is part of a commercial garage like setup. The wine storage facility not sealed off from the garage so susceptible to the garage environment.

When there, the garage environment as follows: doors wide open and vehicles backed into the garage. Fumes evident in the adjacent wine storage facility confirming my suspicions that the storage area had been compromised to the outside environment and was in no way climate controlled. This lead me to believe that although the wine area may never get above 15 dgrees, temperature variation, especially on clear winter nights where day/night temperature split greatest, would be significant!

The last paragraph is not what I had paid for!

Another wine industry misnomer- climate control, like vague old vine definitions and others I suppose!