Reassurance for the paranoid
Posted: 19:35 Fri 27 Jun 2014
There are times when I have read things here and in the other place where people are slightly or intensely paranoid about the effects of bad storage. I find it particularly interesting when I read people being concerned about very short-term fluctuations in storage temperature/conditions and the expectation that it might be detrimental to the wine.
I have conducted an unintentional experiment in bad storage that I find quite interesting, and hope that others might too.
About four months ago I took delivery of 12 bottles of dry red from a well known UK internet-based wine merchant. The case contained four bottles of 2008 claret that I did not particularly want (because they were younger than I had asked for) so I asked for them to be swapped for something older. The bottles in the case were in the £15-£20 per bottle price range.
I was asked to leave the four bottles in a cardboard box in my back garden to be collected within two or three days and replaced with something else. the exchange never happened. The box never moved for four months and has gone through mild frost to very near summer temperatures with a great deal of daily, weekly and monthly fluctuation.
Today I decided to give up all hope that the exchange would happen and brought the four bottles back inside. I opened one two hours ago. It is delicious. It looks and tastes like a 2008 claret that costs £15-£20.
I can see how long term bad storage is likely to damage wine, but this unintended experiment tells me that moderate fluctuations in temperature over a relatively short space of time have virtually no effect whatsoever.
I have conducted an unintentional experiment in bad storage that I find quite interesting, and hope that others might too.
About four months ago I took delivery of 12 bottles of dry red from a well known UK internet-based wine merchant. The case contained four bottles of 2008 claret that I did not particularly want (because they were younger than I had asked for) so I asked for them to be swapped for something older. The bottles in the case were in the £15-£20 per bottle price range.
I was asked to leave the four bottles in a cardboard box in my back garden to be collected within two or three days and replaced with something else. the exchange never happened. The box never moved for four months and has gone through mild frost to very near summer temperatures with a great deal of daily, weekly and monthly fluctuation.
Today I decided to give up all hope that the exchange would happen and brought the four bottles back inside. I opened one two hours ago. It is delicious. It looks and tastes like a 2008 claret that costs £15-£20.
I can see how long term bad storage is likely to damage wine, but this unintended experiment tells me that moderate fluctuations in temperature over a relatively short space of time have virtually no effect whatsoever.
