Wine storage temp

[Neeshac]

Well I am reading that I need to store my wine basically in the mid 60's. that is not good at all. While I have a good temp for fermentation, 75 degrees, that will also be the temp for storage since I do not have a cellar, and 69 degrees in my house would be freezing cold to us Bama folk. We keep our house around 74 all the time. I guess I need to find a good used fridge in the next few weeks.

 

[JohnT]

Neeshac,

You do not NEED to store wine in the mid sixties. It is not like each bottle will rise up and smite you...

Although the mid sixties is the ideal temperature for long term storage, you can survive quite nicely in the mid seventies, just not as long.

I would say that the most important thing is that the wine is not exposed to a lot of wild swings in temperature. Simply find the coolest spot in your house that has the most steady, consistant, temperature. You can go ahead an blame me if it turns out you need to move your wife's sewing room.

I am lucky, I have a basement. I took an entire corner (below grade) and "boxed" it out to form my wine closet. I also took the heat register and removed the flanges and insulated around the pipe so that no heat is directly applied. It stays a nice 55 - 65 degrees year round.

 

[robie]

You live in the deep South where it is a challenge to maintain a temperature in the mid-60's. Of course that temperature would be great, but not always reasonable for your guys way down there. If 75F is the best you can do, don't sweat it; it will just age a slight bit faster.

 

[theTheme]

Neeshac, I am in a very similar boat as you, but very far away geographically. I live in NYC in an old building that is steam heat, meaning the apartment is near 90 F without cracking a window. I can regulate pretty well with judicious use of open windows, but only in the 72-78 range.

I'm about to start my first batch of fruit wine (first batch of any wine) and I have been going round and round trying to come up with a way to isolate, and cool, temps in some part of the apartment. It's nice to hear from more experienced members that I won't be disappointed in 6 months when I open the first bottle (I hope).

 

[bkisel]

What about colder? My garage is around 40-45F this time of the year, is that a problem? So far I've not seen any issues arise from the 6-7 cases I've got stored in the garage.

My basement hovers around 60F this time of the year but I've just about run out of storage space of any kind.

 

[MrKevin]

Wine will age faster at higher temps. The most important thing is avoiding consistent temp swings over long period of times. Living in Fairbanks I'm not only installing a Cellar Cool cooling unit in my wine cellar but I'm installing a heater too. I've notice this year that my cellar (I haven't completed yet) gets 49deg in the winter so I ordered my heater yesterday. I'm collecting wine as well as making it, so proper cellar temp is a big deal (ideal being 55 - 58 deg.) I plan on keeping bottles 25 years or more if I live that long.