The ideal situation would be if we all had great big wine cellars that had air conditioned systems and air purifiers. This would allow you to leave them well alone and yet know that they were in the best conditions for aging just right. Sadly, this is not often the case and so most of us need to use what we have available to us. Here is some great advice for storing your wines safely.
Location. Your bottles, both white and red wine also, are best placed in a cool room, away from the light and with moderate humidity levels. The perfect temperature to maintain your wines at is 10° to 16° C (50° to 61° F). Anything above this will cause a loss of wine quality and above 25° C will have serious adverse affects on the wines characteristics. So if the room you are storing the wine in tends to get hot, you might need a wine cooler to maintain low temp. Direct light can not only affect the temperature of the wine and air inside the bottle but also discolour it. The humidity levels of the air found in the storage room can have dramatic effects on the cork, causing it to swell or contract. This can lead to oxidation, a common problem where air seeps into the bottle and causes the wine (over a period of time) to react with the oxygen.
Positioning. The wine should be placed on a horizontal surface or propped up very slightly so the neck is just higher than the body. This is down to the fact that if there is no liquid in contact with the body of the cork for a sustained period of time it will dry out and contract. This again can lead to oxidation as mentioned before. It can also increase the risk of ‘corking’ the wine when you use a bottle opener.
Display. You don’t allows want your wines tucked away in a dark room. Sometimes you want to display them and show them off. A good choice would be a well built wine cabinetdue to the fact these tend to maintain a steady temperature and always go for one that lets you store your wines on their side.Don’t pick any that have a glass cover or doors as they can often trap heat inside when there is light on them. You might also want to consider a cabinet that allows you to display your wine accessories and dinnerware as well.
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