"[Improper wine storage is] probably the greatest common mistake of people who enjoy wine, but might not know much about it."
The first rule of wine storage is to avoid especially warm environments.
Cedrone elaborates, "If you can store the bottles in a cool, dry place, that's certainly the best. You don't want them in the back of your car. It's not necessarily going to hurt you to drink it, but you will probably notice that it doesn't taste that great. "
He continues by noting that you may want to compare wine to other foods or drinks that you're always careful about storing.
"You [should] treat wine like milk. Most people think that because [wine is] bottled it can't really go bad. If wine heats up it could boil and pop the cork up a little bit and wine can squeeze out. If that happens, oxygen will get in and turn the wine into basically the beginning stages of champagne. When you drink it you will notice that it tastes a little bit bubbly."
There are some basic temperature guidelines for storing both types of wine that will help you determine exactly where inside or outside of your home to keep them.
"The proper temperature for white wine is around 43 degrees Fahrenheit and the proper temperature for red wine is 58 degrees Fahrenheit. You don't have to be dead on with either one of those, but if you have a proper cooler for them, you will want to tune it to those degrees. There is nothing wrong with putting a slight chill on a bottle of red wine, if the temperature is one of reasons you don't really like red wine. Sometimes I'll have a bottle of red wine in the fridge for a party and I just take it out an hour or so in advance, so that it comes back up to 50 or 60 degrees. Some young red wines really benefit from a slight chill," advises Cedrone.
"As far as storing it indoors, you want to try to keep the bottles at an angular upside down direction and make sure that the wine is covering the cork at the top. If it's not, the cork can dry out [if it's made of natural wood], although some corks nowadays are synthetic. You want to make sure that you store it in a way that keeps that cork wet [because] that's what is going to keep a good seal on the bottle."
There are also some places in the home that wine should never be stored, Cedrone says.
"A bad place for wine is above the refrigerator. It's gets pretty hot on top of most refrigerators. If you keep wine up there it certainly could heat up enough that it could go bad, not to mention that when you serve it it's going to be hotter than it should be."
Cedrone says if your goal is to age your wine for collecting purposes "You want to try to store them in an area that is relatively vibration free. [That] is why people store them in wine cellars,because they are below ground and they are very solid areas that are perfect for storing wine. Lots of vibration can ruin wines over time if you are trying to age them."
Regardless of your varieties or how you plan to serve them, Cedrone concludes "The real key is just to store them in a cool dry place, not in direct sunlight and away from heat."
