The Collector :

May their breed grow. Some day I hope to be one of this company, until then alas alack and vice-versa, I belong to the former. If you're a collector and reading this then in any case you'll know what needs to be done. Nevertheless I'll soldier on. Who knows you may be somewhere in between the Casual storer and the Collector.

You would be storing wine if you've bought it when it's young and now want to let it mature so that you can savour it at a later date and also let it increase in value. Before we begin to expostulate further let us sum up by saying that wine needs to be stored in clean, dark, damp place with good ventilation, where it can be stored vibration free at a constant temperature.

The key elements :

Temperature - The optimum temperature is 10-12 degree centigrade, however practically speaking anywhere between 5 to 18 degree should do. The other important thing to consider is to avoid a large variation in the degree of temperature.

Humidity - Humidity levels should be between 50% to 80% otherwise you run the risk of the cork getting screwed.

Light - Constant exposure to light will prematurely age the wine and sparkling wines are more sensitive to over exposure.

Quiet - Avoid excessive sound, which will create vibration and thus make the molecules in the wine go rub a dub a dub thereby making it that much less tastier.

Also make sure that you've laid out your wines in such a way that you don't have to keep moving them while looking for that elusive bottle. The serious wine-geeks will have an individual tag for each bottle. Really if you've got the money and the space then you can enjoy the luxury of buying a temperature and humidity controlled wine cabinet.

Storing Leftover wine : Some tips

• White wine - Recork it and put it back into the fridge, but no more than for a few days, after that it's gone
• Red wine - Buy a vacuum pump, which pumps the air out of the bottle. You'll need to do this a couple of times a day and the wine can be kept for a few days. ·
• Use it for cooking
• Pour the wine into a smaller bottle, so that there's less chance of exposure to air

Tulleeho's Desi Solution :

Another year or two will hopefully see the customs duties come down to more saner levels and then you can start putting together a cellar of your own. Before it gets large (and you get serious) enough for it to warrant a cellar of its own, you'll be at a stage where you will have fifty-odd bottles, which you will want to preserve. This collection would be large enough to warrant reasonable amount of care. If you have a standard workday fridge which you want to get rid of (because you want a big one) and are therefore looking for exchange offers, pause a minute.

Any local fridge can be converted into a wine storage unit very cheaply. A fridge with say three racks will easily double that number if you are looking at storing only wine. Assuming you will be able to keep say five bottles per rack, that gives you a storage capacity for thirty bottles straight away. The chiller will hold three more and the crisper for vegetables will hold say five. So now you are touching the forty bottle capacity mark. The doors of the fridge (where you keep all the bottles and eggs and other such shit) can be converted into holder for the larger bottles-magnums and longish bottles of the type that Alsatian wines use. Nowadays most fridges come with thermostats that are separate for the fridge and the freezer. Please increase the temperature in the freezer and at its warmest it should safely hold another five/six bottles. Voila, a fifty bottle storage.