Question regarding storage. If you have OWC, do you keep your wines in it or without it? Curious if being stored in OWC is not recommended due to lack of circulation.
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No. No easy to handle. Takes extra space, with no benefit.
Perfect long term storage in OWC’s. Avoid
Cardboxes.
So possible lack of circulation isn’t an issue? Also, interesting point about cardboard boxes. I’ve seen some professional storage facilities using them.
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Mould is a vital problem with storage in cardboxes. Even in short term storage if your cellar has a relatively high humidity. Many Bordeaux from 70/71/75 vintage performed perfectly out of first time openend OWC until now. What can i say. Haven’t seen any mould with bottles stored in OWC in my cellar yet.
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If humidity is controlled, there should be no mold issues with cardboard. Professional storage keeps going up each year, so besides cellaring unicorn bottles in OWC, I find it more cost effective to ditch them and use thick cardboard 12-bottle boxes.
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What circulation issues are you talking about? Are you worried that the wine will get a DVT?
And what if you get mold? It’s common in many of the caves in Europe where wine is stored for decades. The problem with cardboard isn’t that it MAY get mold, it’s that cardboard isn’t strong and even a slight dampness weakens it considerably. Then one day you lift a case and the bottom falls out with all of your wine.
You don’t have that problem if you don’t have excessive humidity.
I like to keep the OWCs if they fit nicely in my offsite storage, otherwise I toss them. And once I start drinking the wine, I toss them because then it becomes inefficient due to empty unused space.
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One advantage of OWCs is that they can be floor-stacked as high as 7-8. I find the max for cardboard boxes (long term, humid cellar) is 2. My cellar has open-btl storage and racks for cardboard around the perimeter. The center is big enough for a row of 4-5 stacks of 7-8 OWCs each.
I’ve had mold develop in both containers, OWC and Cardboard. My sense is that it’s more about exposure/location.
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I hate moving stacked OWCs to find one bottle so I’ve designed a 5ft high metal rack, 4 cases wide, that will hold a mix of 12 btl and 6 btl cases. Each case will slide in and out of the rack independently and I’ll be able to hold a lot of wine in a relatively small area that way.