Are you storing your wine correctly? If you tend to only enjoy a bottle of wine occasionally, proper storage techniques may not be an issue for you. However, if you are a wine enthusiast and keep many bottles on hand, you may want to give more consideration to proper wine storage.
How Should I Store My Wine?
Unlike serious wine connoisseur’s, most of us do not have a wine cellar to store our collection. So what options are there for storing wine at home, or in your retail storeroom? One way to consider is keeping them in the cardboard boxes they were shipped in. But many people wonder if this is really a proper way to store wine bottles, and question if this type of storage may even be harmful to the wine over long periods of time.
Storing Wine in Cardboard Boxes
The concern people have about storing their wine in cardboard boxes is that cardboard may be susceptible to the unwanted compound TCA(2,4,6-trichloransisole) which could impart a musty taste to wine. But the truth is this compound can also be found in cellar walls, in wooden racks, or even in the corks of wine bottles. For this reason, wine is stored in impermeable glass bottles, sealed with corks, then topped with metal, wax, or plastic to protect it from any pollutants. There is no scientific basis for wine not to be stored in cardboard boxes. But is there is a proper way to store bottles of wine inside the cardboard boxes?
Properly Storing Unopened Wine
Storing your wine at the correct temperature and humidity is crucial for great tasting wine. Ideal temperatures for wine storage are between 45-65 degrees. Wine stored above 70 degree can cause wine to spoil. The humidity level for wine storage should be around 70 percent to avoid dried out corks. Humidity higher than 70 percent can cause mold to grow on your wine. You can check the humidity levels of your storeroom by using a hygrometer that’s available at any hardware or home improvement store.
Store Boxes in a Dark, Dry Space
In-order to prevent wine from being altered by UV light, it is important to avoid direct lighting to hit your wine bottles. Storing your wine in cardboard boxes reduces sunlight, incandescent light, as well as light from florescent fixtures in retail storage spaces to cause wine to oxidize, which in turn can alter the flavor of your wine. So, store your cardboard boxes of wine in a dark and dry place to preserve its delicate flavors.
Positioning Your Bottles
It’s important to store corked wine bottles in a flat, laying position. This ensures that the cork stays moist at-all-times, keeping the cork from drying out. When a wine bottles cork dries out your wine can be exposed to oxygen causing the wine to spoil. Custom Wine Packaging has a variety of cardboard and pulp wine shipping cartons that will keep your wine bottles nestled in a lying position, cold packs to keep them at a perfect temperature and custom designed cardboard boxes that will keep them stored, dry and fresh as-long-as you need. Please contact CWP today to learn more about our wine shipping and storage products.
