WINE AGING SUPPORT GROUP

[NorthernWinos]

It is a bedroom in the downstairs part of the house...I keep the door closed and the heat is turned off in that zone of the basement floor....It stays a constant 62*...might go up to 65* during the summer. The walls are 12" cement blocks and 6" of insulation...so the temps don't fluctuate too much in the basement.




The root cellar was down to 59* the other day...that's the coldest I've seen it..usually 62*-65* winter and summer...

 

[Tomy]

Wow that a bit warm for a root cellar mine stays from 40f in the winter to 50f in the summer. Tomy Edited by: Tomy

 

[NorthernWinos]

Ours is more of a store room...for canning and equipment..etc....The roots aren't real happy in there...but it's all we have....The floor is probably colder....I have a temperature strip on the wine racks and that's where I look at the temperature. The temps stays pretty constant...In the summer on some very humid days the cement floor seems to look damp, so I open the door for a day or so to dry it out...that's when the temp goes up past the mid 60's....Got to make do with the spaces we have.


I would love to have a real root cellar and a real wine cellar. Do you keep your wines in there???? What doesyour root cellarlook like???Edited by: Northern Winos

 

[Tomy]

Its a small room in the North West corner of the basement with a door to the outside that leaks a good bit of cold air. I can't show a picture as my wife said she has to clean up in there. She also stores canned vegges, jams & jellys she has made.

 

[NorthernWinos]

Ours is also on the NW corner of the house...It is about 6' under ground and 2 feet above ground. I wish we'd have put a vent to the outside to cool it a bit more...but this is the best we can do. I wanted a dirt floor to keep it cooler and more natural, but we didn't do that either.
Lots of other stuff stored in there too...canner, steamer, dehydrator..Xmas decor...just have to cram stuff where it fits and out of sight.

 

[Gelu Liber]

There are many ways to try and keep yourself from cracking in to that wine at 6 months that should have been left for a year or more. The first, of course, is self restraint. The second, as I think I have read, is to make enough wine that you can't get to it before it is due.


If you only make one batch at a time this can be difficult depending on how much you consume. If you make 2 or 3 at a time you can pick one or twobatches to make as an early/anytime drinker and one to age. They can be all different wines or all the same.


The key, of course, is to pacify your need to ransack your aging store of wine by drinking something else. I store my bottles in bins stacked on top one anotherand I don't separate different wines. This makes it a HUGE pain to get at the bottles on the bottom. I started making wine in 2006 and my oldest wines are an apple wine frommy own apples from October 2006 and a Riesling from October 2006. This past January my wife needed just a touch of white wine for cooking so I broke out the Riesling and it was fantastic (I don't know if I could taste it in her cooking though).

 

[Tomy]

I had a problem with alcohol over 30 years ago when I woke up at 3 AM reached down and grabbed a bottle of Jim Beam, took a big slug, and thought, I guess normal people don'tlive like this. So I cleaned up my act and now have a social drink every now and then. It will take me almost a month to drink a 6 pack, and most large bottles of wine will go bad before I finish them, so I don't have any problem with leaving the wine alone and age. Tomy

 

[Gelu Liber]

I guess I should clarrify "consume". I would hope one was not consuming 30 bottles every 28 days. I givequite a bit of wine away... and then there are the "get togethers" where more than normal amounts of wine are drank. I guess I shouldn't assumeit is the same for others.
I used to drink more often but my life keeps getting in the way and I had to slow down.

 

[NorthernWinos]

Looked in the spare bedroom....

Getting company next week...

One side of the bed is the wine aging area.....

Guess they are just going to have to deal with it...a good place to throw their clothes.

Shhhhhh!!!!! don't tell Jim there are more boxes under the bed.

 

[Waldo]

Whats in the boxes NW

 

[Wade E]

Looks like someone doesnt need any help on this part of the forum!

 

[grapeman]

Comon rodman, hold out..give that Currant another 6 months at least. You can do it !!!!
I just bottled a batchof Black Currant/Campbells Early Grapethat has been bulk aging since 12/23/06. It was worth the wait.

I was thinking it was NW who talked about having Campbells Early grapes, but I see now it was Waldo that spoke of this grape fairly often. Here is a picture for you I took at Geneva at one of the USDA Germplasm Repository sites of Campbell's Early Grape. They are kept growing at these site to insure the variety survival, dissemination and use along with 1400 other varieties at this site-one of two in this country.

Edited by: appleman

 

[Waldo]

Will be getting more this year appleman..that is ifPost winerywill sell any this year