A friend of mine worked at Mondavi where they did an experiment along these lines. They concluded that as long as the humidity is OK, no worries.
I would add that if the humidity is too low, nothing will save you.
Glad to see this generated a spirited debate. I will probably keep things the way they currently are for now (out of sheer laziness), but I’ll be on the lookout for any horizontal boxes if I come across any empties at stores.
Brian - Do they actually bottle, box, and turn upside down immediately? And never any leaks? Now that I think about it, I never actually watched it in the US.
It also depends on if the line has vacuum or how effective the vacuum is. Our line has no vacuum, so we stand upright for 24 hours so that pressure from corking can equalize. If we stand them head down right away, some wine comes out.
Andrew - do you use any gas?
Yes. We sparge with N.
I have heard that they never flip. As policy, they the all the wines top up.
Nice thing, if you want to try a bottle, you don’t have to think to stand it up for a week (or a month for a barolo).
All cellars need to be redesigned now with vertical storage.