So I live the Northeast and oil is the fuel for heat .
I keep some of our wine in the basement (no it’s not proper temperature storage since our basement is warm) in the same room as the oil tank. When we get an oil delivery , the basement stinks like oil for several hours . In that time , will the oil smell permeate any wine bottles? Some are cork and some are screw top, and some have foil covering over the top . I do keep the wines in styrofoam shippers and then in boxes (not airtight).
I haven’t opened a bottle of wine that smells like oil yet. So maybe that’s the answer to my question .
I would say if you have been doing this for a while and no one has noticed a negative effect you are probably okay. That said, it certainly is not ideal and I would be looking for a long term alternative.
Even assuming that air ever gets all the way through the cork (i.e. from outside the cork to the wine), anything that short term wouldn’t get past the starting gates (wrt diffusing through the cork). I’d have zero concern.
I’ve stored 1500+ bottles near two manifolded fuel oil tanks for 15+ years. Only some of the Rieslings smell like petrol…as expected. After a fill, the oil odors are quite “minor” due to some tiny seepage in one of the fittings. The odors dissipate within an hour or two. It’s been like that for years. If you have pronounced fuel oil odors (i.e.: “stinks”) after a fill, you should definitely have your system checked and perhaps re-plumbed.
Convert to natural gas. It will pay for itself in less than 4 years. We had oil till this last fall. Several issues last winter that convinced me to look into switching over.
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