WINE INSIDER

with Steph Bouvard

Wine racks come in all sizes. If you do an internet search for wine rack you’ll find sites that have custom designed wine cellars to hold hundreds of bottles under perfect climactic conditions to sites that have decorative countertop wrought iron wine racks that hold 4 to 6 bottles, the choices are endless.

Those who teach about wine storage teach about the importance of temperature, humidity, ventilation, and the angle of storage. Some even preach that care should be taken to make sure there is no vibration to work up the sediment from the bottom of the bottle. A little too much for me.

Before I got more serious about wine I would simply have a handful of wine bottles at any time, maybe 4 or 5. rolling around on their sides in a cabinet in the kitchen. This has been OK for my 4 or 5 bottles, as long as they didn’t hang around there too long and were consumed pronto… that wasn’t too hard of a task back in the days. As I then started collecting wine over the years from my travels and tours around vineyards and wineries it became paramount I had a better system for storing my wines.

There are 2 key options, well 3 in fact:

What’s the difference you might ask? well if you live in a fairly cool area, and have a nice dark cool and a little dampish corner of a room a wine rack will suffice, you can find some super simple ones for 3 bottles all the way up to more sophisticated ones. I like to always have one of those as hand particularly during winter or when I am hosting.

All I want a wine rack that will hold a few bottles, out of the way that will look nice and enhance the style of my kitchen. There are many styles to choose from. There are some shelving wine rack units that come in a variety of finishes that will hold up to 150 bottles, too big. There is the 12 bottle wine rack with a very industrial look of wire and wood, not my style. There are some lovely wrought iron wine racks. A lovely set that are actually bookends that each hold three bottles, great to use if I had a library. How about a wrought iron cabinet with a lovely leaf design that holds up to 33 bottles? Or, a wrought iron hanging rack that holds up to eight bottles and eight wine glasses…. now we’re getting close.

You may be amazed at the number of different wine racks you can find that will enhance the style of your home.

Now let’s say the climate in your home is no where near that of a wine cellar, having a wine fridge can be a great option. Back in the days I lived in Singapore after full maderising a case of fine Bordeaux I had no choice but to get a wine fridge. You can get some very affordable ones which will hold anywhere from 6 to 50+ bottles without being too invasive in your home. Quite frankly it adds a little elegance to any kitchen or living room and is a great conversation starter when entertaining. Those wine fridges will be great for keeping your wines and protecting them so that all you need to do is pull them out and open them, they will be at perfect service temperature. You can find some with dual temperature control for both reds & whites.

For the more advanced connoisseur who will invest time and money into their wine and who will wish to age their wine then we would be looking at the next category of wine fridges which are designed for ageing. These tend to look pretty much like a fridge and usually have a capacity of at least 200 bottles, they do take up more space, consume more energy and aren’t the sexiest of appliance to look at, they are truly designed to stack bottles inside and leave them there to age.

With climate change and erratic weather patterns my advice to you is this, either you just want a handful of bottles of wine at a time in your home: get a wine rack and preferable one made of terracotta it will help protect the wine from heat and light. However if you want to keep in your home more than 6 bottles then it’s really worth investing in a small wine fridge. Amazon has some great starting options, you can get them to be built in or standalone and they even do some counter top one which are about the size of a microwave.

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