For those who drink primarily modern Cali Reds...

WINE TALK
21

I think the difference between a 2007 Napa and a 2005 Bordeaux is just that the Bordeaux NEEDS to age, not that it can/might age but is drinkable now. So with things that NEED age, I say age them carefully. But with a 2007 Napa that may or may not age but is still going to be consumed within a few years, why keep it at 55? This whole premise is making generalizations across many factors, which is probably why the idea isn’t clear to everyone. I’m looking at this topic in a very black & white way, if you introduce greys there are too many questions to answer.

22

Then you would be best served by closing your computer and reading a book. Any book.
Grey comes to the internet to live. Grey never sleeps. [cheers.gif] [cheers.gif] [cheers.gif]

23

If you’re looking at it in black and white, you have two options:

  1. Risk – room temp.

  2. No risk – temp controlled cellar/fridge

Why not just put the damn things in a temp-controlled cellar? You’re in Houston anyway, so “passive” ain’t working.

If DiSalvo is correct, even five years in a fluctuating 70+ degree cellar may cause some degradation of quality. If you have great wines that you don’t plan to age, you still have an interest in protecting against degradation. Perhaps if space is the issue, consider cost/quality your priority and triage your wines. Or, expand.

24

I agree. It’s sorta like asking if you should put the New Ferrari in the garage or keep it on the street even if you plan on getting rid of it in 2 years.

25

90+% of the wines I drink are from California. Based on my experience, I do not think reds, especially the more hearty ones, are harmed by being kept at room temp (68-72 at my house, depending on the season) for a year or two. Accordingly, I keep a lot of daily drinkers in a rack in the pantry. These are wines I’ll drink in the relatively near term. I keep wines I intend to hold for longer periods in temp-controlled storage.

26

I’ll echo many of the comments here. I drink mostly Cali and I live in a hot climate. Even though lots of my shipments come from the west coast through “cold truck shipping”, every last one of them is eventually offloaded to a local UPS or FedEx warehouse and truck, which is exposed to the heat.

While I do temp control store my wine (wine cabinet, 55 degrees), wine sitting for a few days in 70-80 degree heat will not “cook” the wine, in my experience.

That all said, I temp control for the following reasons:

  1. Lowers risk - peace of mind
  2. The wine cabinet takes up less space than trying to create a cellar
  3. It looks cool in my office and generates lots of good conversation with visitors
  4. Because I can [snort.gif] - no different than why all of us buy $50 and $100 bottles of wine, vs. the $15 stuff at Costco (BTW, I buy that too)
27

This is what I’ve always wondered. I am no aging expert, and Brett issues aside, if a Bord or Burg needs 30 years to hit its sweet spot, couldn’t you store it at say…65 degrees and speed that up a bit?

I’d be curious for my own education to know why this doesn’t work.

28

Since Nolan wants it in black and white, why don’t we do this the Hedges way? I’m sure Mike would agree. :wink:

If you store your wine in temperature control, you’re a genius and have good taste because there is a difference between using proper storage and not using proper storage.

If you don’t store your wine in temperature control because in your experience the taste of wine stored improperly is the same as properly stored wine, then obviously you have very poor taste and you must be an idiot.

-Fin

[snort.gif] champagne.gif [berserker.gif]

29

There’s your problem: life is seldom black&white.

30

Funny- I think the more interesting question might be, if you store your Cali wines at 50, will they still seem youthful in 15-20 yrs.

31

Clearly you are not cut out to be a politician.

32

Chemistry:

http://www.wineperspective.com/STORAGE%20TEMPERATURE%20&%20AGING.htm

33

Totally the same experience, only this was with a weekly tasting group. When the same wine and vintage was tasted side by side, (one from a passive cellar and one from one of our colder cellars) the difference was not just noticeable, but very pronounced.

There is not much to discuss here. It is still a matter of taste. If you cannot taste the difference, don’t spend the money. That goes for the wine as well. I am not being facetious, if you don’t perceive the difference, don’t buy a cellar and don’t spend on the energy to keep it cool. Also, don’t be upset if your friends don’t give your wines great reviews. [stirthepothal.gif]

34

I’m probably 65% Cali, 30% Washington, 5% French. If my house never got above 70 degrees, I probably would not worry too much if I drank all my wine prior to reaching 4 years of age. However, I consume my wine between age 6 (pinot and zin) and age 8 (cab and syrah). I currently store passively in the basement in a temperature range between 50 degrees minimum in the winter to 65 degrees maximum in the summer. The results have been excellent so far, but I have never compared bottles from the same case stored in different conditions. I am planning a new temperature controlled cellar upstairs in the house and have been struggling with the decision on whether to go with a $300 A/C unit that will probably do 65 vs. a $2200 wine storage unit that will go to 55. I do buy a lot of less expensive wines that are consumed within 60 days and I just keep them in ice chests in a cooler spot even through the summer at ambient (in the house) temps between 60 and 75. I have not had any problems there, but I sure would not want to go over 70 for an extended period. My 2-cents worth…

35

Scott, there are certainly ways to use a window A/C unit to cool below 65 degrees. It may not appeal to some folks, but is not rocket science.

Good luck however you decide to go.

36

+1. The wine industry wants you to believe you need $10K worth of ridiculously unreliable equipment to store your wines, and then everyone who has spent the $10K wants everyone else to believe you need it so they don’t feel like suckers.

And yes, I have multiple 55 degree storage cabinets, so I’m full of sh*t, but at least not quite full enough to try to get everyone else to fall into the same trap.

I’d love to conduct a 10 year experiment of a half case of Bordeaux, California cab or whatever stored in a Eurocave versus the other half case stored in a cardboard box on the floor of the downstairs hall closet, open all the bottles blind for a panel composed of the CEOs of Vinotemp, Eurocave, Le Cache and whoever else, and see if they can pick out which six are which, and which ones turn out to be their favorites. That would be priceless. [I do agree that as you get into even longer periods, there is likely to be an increasing extent to which it actually matters having perfect storage.]

To the original question, if that part of your house doesn’t have big temperature fluctuations and doesn’t get above the 70s, and if you aren’t holding bottles for very long periods, then you’re probably fine without the expense and headache of owning expensive storage equipment. Even if, hypothetically, you had a few more bottles end up flawed as a result, the money lost on those bottles would still be dwarfed by the money you saved on equipment, electricity and repairs.

37

I partially agree. But while the OP seems to want to look at it “black or white” the discussion and answers don’t go that way as people are talking about diferent temperatures, different amounts of time, and maybe even differently valued wine. Within his discussion he’s talked a couple of years up to ten years. There’s can be a difference.
Even you’ve said “above the 70s”. I certainly wouldn’t want to sit my Marcasssin Pinots, Shafer Cabs what-have-you in 78-79 degree (max) exposure for 7-8 years. Even if that exposure was for just a dozen hours a week over the 3+ month summer. That’s what I’d probably get if I just stuck wine around the house. I’m in my home office and the temp is 75 here inside, while the hottest part of summer has yet to arrive. I’m not running air.
I don’t have a basement, nor do many other people here in Cali. If I DID and never went above 70 I wouldn’t worry.
I also don’t know that the value judgement of a few more flawed bottles’ cost vs. equipment & energy is clear. What if one is talking $100+ dollar bottles? Also, forget the cost analysis. Who wants to age an excellent wine for 8 years, wait for and anticipate it, then take it to a restaurant for it to be found flawed. Not only are you out the cost, but also the effort and the experience of drinking that bottle at its best.
Also, there’s a middle ground to having a full-blown cellar. I have off-site, but also three units at home. They don’t have to be fancy or expensive to work. I have one nice one, but also two cheapies. One is a 30-bottle Sunbeam that I bought at Home Depot for $125 a dozen years ago. I just bought a beverage cooler for my bedroom this week and saw that they have a matching 28-bottle wine cooler (tinted glass door and all) for $198.

38

Btw, I do agree that for a real-short term like drinking a wine within a couple of months, there isn’t a big deal to letting it get up to 80 for small periods of time. I also agree that I think people do obsess too much over the risks of a nice passive cellar slowly and very occasionally reaching the high sixties.

Bipin Desai gave me an interesting account of a little experiment he did. The exact details I can’t recall. But the gist is that he took three bottles of a mid-level bordeaux with approx. five years of age on them. One he kept in climate control. One he stuck in his trunk and drove around with for a few days in warm but not really hot weather. The third he put out in the direct sun for the entire day leading up to the tasting with some others. In the tasting the group clearly deemed the direct sun bottle the worst, but preferred the trunk bottle to the perfectly stored bottle.

39

Well said, John G. I totally agree that the answer depends on what you are storing, for how long, and for what purpose, as well as what the specific temperatures and temperature fluctuations would exist in your passive storage. I’m not encouraging anyone to take their 2010 First Growths and Grand Crus and store them on the guest room floor for the next 20 years (although I think there is a decent chance that you wouldn’t clearly identify and prefer the ones stored in the Eurocave in a blind comparison after that time).

But I also feel like wine is far hardier than most wine geeks believe, and the benefits of ideal storage are a lot less than most wine geeks believe. Fear is the ultimate marketing device (those of you who have raised young children in the last decade or two know all about this – “what, your baby doesn’t have flame-retardant pajamas? You are using a second-hand infant car seat that is two models ago??”), and so it goes with wine storage.

As I said earlier, I’m partly full of sh*t since I have three temperature controlled cabinets myself, plus some wine stored at Legend Cellars. But I also never have any problems with some daily drinkers sitting for months or years in cardboard boxes around my house, they seem perfectly fine and none the worse for it.

40

+1

“Gray Matters”