Key Takeaways:
Storing your wine collection properly is essential, whether you’re a casual collector or a commercial business. It’s the difference between a perfectly aged vintage and a spoiled bottle.
In this article, you’ll learn:
- Why a climate-controlled storage unit is the best option for preserving your collection by protecting it from wine’s greatest enemies: temperature shifts, UV, and vibration
- The exact temperature and humidity levels needed to keep corks healthy and prevent oxidation
- How to pack, transport, and arrange your bottles so they remain secure and undisturbed on their journey to their professional storage location
Why Does Climate-Control Matter For Wine Storage?
If you’re passionate about wine or run a food and beverage business, you’ll know wine storage requires more than stashing bottles out of the way. It’s serious work! Although it may be tempting to store wine in a fridge, storeroom, or cupboard, these spaces don’t provide the long-term stability your wine needs. So, how do you store wine, and why is a climate-controlled storage unit better?
Temperature fluctuations, vibration, and UV exposure can all degrade the flavour and shelf life of your wine. In a climate-controlled storage unit, your wine bottles are kept secure. These units provide a consistent setting that your home or business often lacks.
In this article, we’ll focus on how to store your wine in a storage unit and the benefits of doing so.
How A Storage Unit Helps You Mature Your Wine For The Perfect Sip
Storing wine in a climate-controlled wine unit provides stability that fridges or cupboards can’t match. These units provide you with peace of mind, not only for the security of your wine, but also for its preservation.
Light & UV Protection
Wine should always be stored in a dark place, away from sunlight. Sunlight emits UV rays, which, unfortunately, can trigger chemical reactions within your bottle. This can lead to a breakdown of flavour, reducing the freshness, and prematurely ageing your wine. Consistent, dark conditions in storage units protect wine from any potential UV or light exposure.
Temperature Control
Temperature control for wine is one of the most crucial factors to consider in storage. Whether you’re storing white or red wine, fluctuations in temperature can ‘stress’ the wine, causing the liquid to expand and contract.
This pressure can compromise the bottle’s seal, especially if it’s corked. If the expansion from the hot air compromises the cork by pushing it out, your wine may become oxidised, ruining the flavour. A drop of wine wasted is a disappointment, let alone a whole bottle!
The main thing to consider is whether the temperature is consistent to avoid these fluctuations. Our wine storage units maintain a temperature of 14-16°C year-round.
Consistent Humidity
Although many wines have screw caps, it’s still important to maintain ideal humidity levels. This is especially true if any bottles in your collection are corked. Like temperature control, the humidity levels play an important role in preventing oxidation. High levels of humidity, on the flipside, can lead to an increased risk of mould in an improperly stored bottle.
Storage units can control the temperature and humidity. For example, Guardsman keeps its wine units at a perfect 55-65% humidity level year-round.
Enhanced Security
With round-the-clock CCTV, your wine is safer in a storage unit than in your own home. Storage units (like ours!) come with on-call security staff, alarmed fences, unique pin codes for access, and storage visiting hours. All of these help to protect your wine further than if it were stored in your own cellar or wine fridge in the kitchen.
For businesses, this enhances security and allows you to keep some of your stock off-site in a secure location without worry.
How To Store Bottled Wine In A Unit
Packing & Transporting Your Wine
You know all of the benefits of storing wine in a climate-controlled unit, but the first step in personal or commercial wine storage is to get it there.
Before you start moving your wine collection, you’ll need to:
- Check each bottle for cracks, leaks, or loose corks
- Wipe each bottle down to ensure there is no moisture to attract mould
- Group your wines by type, like reds, whites, and sparkling
When packaging your bottles for transportation, make sure you avoid loosely stacking them in their boxes or carriers. Ideally, you’ll want to use boxes with dividers. It’s also important to store corked bottles on their sides. Label each bottle and box to facilitate easy unpacking when they’re secure.
Setting Up Your Unit
Once you arrive at your storage unit and start unpacking, you’ll want to move quickly to prevent the temperature fluctuations previously mentioned.
When setting up your climate-controlled unit, place bottles on their sides to prevent oxidation, but also leave space around boxes or racks for airflow. Do you have both red and white wine? You can store them in the same unit together because of the consistent temperature. To help keep your wine fresh during long-term storage, you can purchase Guardsman packing supplies like flat lay wine boxes with inserts.
With the right preparation and a climate-controlled unit, your wine collection will mature beautifully. The next step is choosing a facility to suit your needs for space, security, and temperature.
Whether you’re expanding your personal collection or managing business stock, the right solution makes sure your bottles are ready when you need them.
Contact the team at Guardsman today to find out more about our wine storage options.