Enjoying a fine bottle of wine with family and friends has to be one of life's great pleasures. If it happens to be a bottle you picked-up years ago and matured wonderfully in your very own wine cellar - even better.
Red wine will develop and improve in the bottle for the short, medium, or long term depending on the style of the wine and the quality of the particular vintage. Although some white wines will also benefit from (usually short-term) cellaring, most are best enjoyed when relatively young.
Wine is best stored somewhere cool, dark, airy, and free from major vibrations and dampness.
What follows are a few of the crucial factors that give wine the best chance to mature properly:
Temperature
Temperature is the single most crucial factor of wine cellaring; especially when aging wines for 5, 10, 15 years or more. Constant temperature is of the utmost importance. Temperature changes (especially rapid change in temperature) cause corks to expand and contract, allowing air to enter the bottle. There is no surer way to create oxidization of the wine and thus render the wine undrinkable. Suitable temperatures for storing wine are between 11ºC to 17ºC but several degrees either side of this are safe. For wine cellars of up to 1000 cubic feet the WhisperKOOL 4200 is an excellent option if you are looking for a self contained cooling unit.
Humidity
It is crucially important to monitor humidity within the cellar. The ideal humidity level for wine is between 62.5% and 72.5%. Most wine cellars suffer from lack of humidity (especially air conditioned cellars), which leads to corks drying out, shrinking and eventual wine leakage and oxidization. The WhisperKOOL XLT 4200 is specially designed to cool cellars slowly, thereby running almost 80% of the time and ensuring that optimum humidity levels are maintained.
Air Flow
Adequate airflow in wine cellars will prevent almost all unwanted vermin and mould. Whilst extreme amounts of dry air movement could logically dry out corks, very cold air (say below 5°C) will likely chill the wine and prevent a slow balanced maturation. A climate control system is specifically designed to ensure gentle but present humidity controlled air movement, at the appropriate - not too much - not too little, level.
Do your best to maintain the conditions described above and you will be sharing fine wine with friends for years to come. For wine cellars of up to 650 cubic feet the WhisperKOOL 3000 is an excellent cooling option as it monitors both the temperature and humidity in one easy-to-install unit.