Popped into my head after reading another pre-mox thread and the idea that hot summers like 2003 may have ruined plenty of wines in producer’s cellars, before they were shipped to the US.
I have yet to visit France, so don’t take this as my assertion or evidence based on my visits - it’s just a topic for debate/discussion.
I think as wine collectors, we’re seduced by the notion that if a producer from Europe has cellared (caved if you will lol) the wines, that they’re released from “perfect” storage conditions, say 55 degrees and whatever level of humidity is ideal (70%?)
Take for example the summer of 2003 in Europe. I can’t fathom that the majority of cellars/caves stayed “romantically” cool, if you will.
Given lengthy, month-long heat waves - what do folks generally think the temp reaches in passive cellars/caves? Again, over an extended period of time, not a couple days of 90+ temperatures of course.
How about when producers move bottled wines from their facility to the underground cellars/caves - how long do they sit at 70 degrees or more?
Again - I’m curious to hear what folks generally think/have seen/know, I tend to be on the skeptical side of the equation.
It varies tremendously but obviously no one thinks that there are perfect cellars in every winery in every country
In a place like Burgundy a lot of cellars truly are underground and probably didn’t get too disastrously hot during the summer of 03. Those that were above ground probably fared worse. In the S of France, there are some folks with temperature control and a lot without. There are a lot of factors though to keep in mind… wine in barrel has a small enough thermal mass to change temperature during the day. Wine in huge foudre / botti though, will swing more with the seasons and less with the days. Many producers I’ve talked to in the Languedoc, Rhone, Bandol, Piedmont, etc, believe that these seasonal temperature changes, even if they’re small (winters at 50F, summers at 60F) to be a part of the maturation of their wine. They cynic can say that they are just explaining away their lack of refrigeration, but you can’t argue with the results at a place like Conterno or Tempier (Daniel Ravier told me that he has resisted getting climate control in the cellar, he thinks it will disrupt the aging of the wine).
Theoretically if this were a big problem in Burgundy lots of 02 would have been bottled and sitting in the winery through the summer of 03 but I’ve never heard suggestion of widespread heat damage in 02 burgs.
On the flip side, a lot of the S French producers I buy from already had sold their 01’s through and I skipped 02/03 so I guess I luckily missed the chance of a problem. 01 Barolo would have still been in Botti in most traditional cellars in Piedmont, being bottled sometime in 04 or 05 for most traditionalists… I have not seen any evidence of heat damage in 01 Barolo either, FWIW, nor have I heard of this.
I guess all things considered I don’t think a little seasonal variation is a bad thing. There are those who think it IS a bad thing and those who think it IS a good thing. I don’t have anywhere near enough experience / information to say authoritatively, but there are great wines made in ambient cellars and great wines made in fixed temp cellars, this much is for sure.
Interesting question! I Googled “temperature variation in caves” and discovered an interesting study done at Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota in 1984-85. See http://www.nps.gov/archive/wica/Cave_Meteorology.htm
First, let’s look at how heat enters the cave from the rock above it. The flow of heat through the sandstone and limestone overlying Wind Cave’s passages is extremely slow. Temperature fluctuations of over 60°F between day and night are not uncommon on the surface, but if we were to monitor the temperature only two feet below the surface on such a day, the fluctuation in temperature would be only about 1°F. Therefore, it does not stay warm long enough during the day, nor does it stay cool long enough during the night, to significantly change the temperature of the rock only two feet underground. > The same principle holds true for seasonal temperature fluctuations as well, although the depth at which temperatures begin to stabilize is greater. Seasonal temperature fluctuations of 80°F are reduced to only l°F at a depth of about 50 feet. > So if a cave’s only source of heat was from the overlying rock, its temperature would approximate the mean annual surface temperature for its area.
I don’t know how deep traditional French caves are, but based on the statements above, I’d expect the seasonal temperature effect - even in a year as hot as 2003 - to be minimal, at least in pristine, undisturbed caves. The greater effect in any season is probably due to the effect of people entering and exiting the cave and allowing infiltration of outside air.
My experience with the cave here is just that. Very little fluctuation, except near the entrances. We have quite cold winters for CA up here (it snowed 4 times and there were a number of days in January where the highs were <40) and it has been damn hot lately, but I wouldn’t guess the temperature inside has changed more than 1-2 degrees. I haven’t set up my dataloggers yet, though.
There is definitely a stratification as you approach the entrances/exits, where the temp reflects the outside ambient more. There is a lot of radiance from the doors and the airflow is significant when they’re open.
This cave also has a lot of rock above it, though.
Our passive “cellar” or warehouse, though, has been at about 75 - 80 during the day in this heat wave. Yesterday, I was in there (it was ~103 out) and, while it offered relief, I wouldn’t have been comfortable storing finished wine there. There are very few windows and it has thick cement walls but still it gets quite warm. It especially radiates in from the closed rollup doors. We don’t use it for cased goods storage for just this reason.
I’ve been to very many chateaux’/domaines’ cellars in France (Bdx, Burgundy, Loire, Alsace, etc.). All in Bdx and most all in Burgundy that I’ve been to are automatically temperature-controlled (they do have a/c / cooling systems in France, believe it or not) even if they are underground.
That said, even in the absolutely cruel summer heat (and I’m used to playing golf in the height of Philippine summer heat, mind you) in Meursault in July 2006, the underground cellar of Patriarche’s Château de Meursault was very cool - and I do not believe there was an airconditioning system there - not that I noticed, anyway.
Many producers do have some underground cellars, and they stay cool no matter what (as Steve pointed out you don’t need to go very deep to get a very stable temperature). I wouldn’t say the same of most distributors/retailers…
And re: premox not sure if there’s a link, premox started to happen way before 2003, from customers’ cellars.
As others have said, it varies a lot. My impression (mainly from Chateauneuf) is that only the larger producers have invested in temperature controlled storage, and that many “cellars” are not really underground. Pegau is a classic example, where the cellar is at basement level, and certainly not cool by the standards of wine geeks. I have to say it doesn’t seem to do the wine any harm though.
Champagne probably has the best passive storage, with vast Gallo-Romaine caves dug deep underground. A stready 55 degrees is certainly realistic there.
My experience is that a number of wineries, especially in the South of France installed A/C units after 97 and 03.
Conversly, some of the coldest places on earth that I have been to, are cellars in Burgundy in January. I would not be surpise if the tempatures where around 40.
