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Wine Storage
The Nature of Wine
Organic and biochemical compounds give each individual wine its taste, odor, and color. Over the years these compounds change and new compounds are formed, and this process constitutes the “aging” of the wine. Wine will also generally have between 11% and 13% ethyl alcohol.
Experts recommend that wine be protected from three principal elements: light, heat, and air.
Light tends to age wine prematurely through photochemical reactions that speed or distort the normal aging processes.
For this reason, colored glass is used for most bottles. Light also usually means heat, and because heat accelerates virtually every kind of chemical reaction, it can be a most destructive force on wine.
Any liquid that comes in contact with the atmosphere can absorb oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, etc., and dramatically change its chemical make up. When wine comes in contact with air, generally the oxygen oxidizes the ethyl alcohol, creating acetic acid, a.k.a. vinegar.
Wine should therefore be protected against air at all costs (aside, of course, from when it’s being drunk).
Thus, bottles are usually stored on their sides, in order to keep the cork wet and tight in the neck. If the atmosphere is kept humid, however, the cork will not dry, shrink, or become more porous. The most commonly suggested level of relative humidity for wine storage is around 70%.
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