Meghan: Wine tastes wonderful when it is at its peak, but if you do not store it in the right place wine quickly turns bitter. So I headed to Wine Cellar Innovations to discover how to keep wine tasting like it should.
I am hitting the road, searching for answers, and finding great design it is a quest of beauty, function and of course inspiration.
Unlike other food and drinks that can be thrown in a refrigerator and stay fresh, wine needs special conditions to keep it at its peak. So in choosing how to store wine it is important to know what it means. And to learn about that I talked to Tony Wilke the VP of operations at Wine Cellar Innovations
Tony: Long-term storage of wine requires A – consistent temperature and B – a high humidity level. The main reason for that is, wine breaths and as it ages it means to be able to breath through that cork.
Meghan: The cork allows oxygen to pass through to the wine which ages the wine and helps it to reach its peak flavor.
Tony: As the wine is aging the wine is being pushed out and replaced with oxygen.
Meghan: However, if too much oxygen gets into the wine, the wine will become bitter. Drastic changes in temperatures and low levels of humidity are the main culprits that cause wine to turn bitter.
To keep your wine at its peak, it is important to store it in a location that has the proper temperature and humidity and the perfect condition for wine was actually found in underground caves in Europe where wine used to be stored.
Tony: The underground cave is the temperature you are trying to replicate in your wine cellar. So we are looking for is 55 degrees actually 55 and 58 and then relative humidity between 55% and 75%.
Meghan: But if you cannot keep your wine in the perfect conditions, do not worry, Jack Diener Sales Director at Wine Cellar Innovations assured me that your wine would not be ruined.
Jack: For all practical purposes if you are going to consume it within three to five years not many wines are going to go bad in ones home unless you kept it in the trunk or above a refrigerator.
Meghan: While wine is safe to keep out for a few years, do not think you can get by with chilling it in your fridge.
Jack: Putting it in your refrigerator it is a subject to everything in your refrigerator that smells. The cork of a wine is a natural substance so things pass in and out of it. So, if there is a piece of salmon or an onion in your refrigerator eventually your wine is going to take on the smell, taste of salmon or onions.
Meghan: And that probably would not be the bets way to enjoy your wine. So remember, for the best tasting wine, store it in a location that is set to 55 to 58 degrees and has a humidity of 55% to 75%.
For extra information about where I have been and what I have learned visit my website www.askthedecorator.com.
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