How to store fine wine
You probably don't have access to a centuries old limestone cave to store your bottles of fine wine like the photo above from our producer in Vouvray... But there are a few things you can learn from them and adapt to your own circumstances.
A rule of thumb is that the longer you want to store your wine, the more important the 5 points below become. Less than a year? Just don't leave it in the sun or let it get hot. 50 years? You might want to invest in a limestone cave. For anything in between, it's not hard to find a good place in your house if you give it a bit of thought.
Before we get to the details, here are some common options for storage and our rating:
Best (safe for decades): climate controlled cellar, underground cellar, or wine fridge.
Good (safe for years): Dark, cool cupboard with a fairly stable temperature. Keep your bottles on their side and they'll be fine.
Bad (safe for weeks, maybe): Anywhere regularly over 20 degrees, with fluctuating daily temperature, or in sunlight. That nice looking wine rack on your kitchen bench by the window needs a rethink...
1. Keep your bottles away from heat
This is one of the most important parts of storing wine. You wouldn't leave your pet in the car on a hot day, so don't leave your wine there either. Same for that shelf above your stovetop, or the space in your basement right next to the hot water tank. Unless you're using it in a ragu, you really don't want to cook your wine and that is what will happen if it is exposed to heat. All the subtle flavours and complexities will disappear and you'll be left with a jammy wine at best. Other than the obvious examples above, be careful of any source of heat near where you plan to store your wine which can still cook your wine over longer periods: under-floor heating, north facing exterior walls, hot water pipes, attics, brick chimneys attached to working fireplaces, etc.
2. Keep your bottles out of sunlight
Heat is one thing, but UV light is quite another. Even that fancy wine fridge with a glass door keeping your bottles at the perfect temperature won't make much difference if there is sunlight streaming through it. Sunlight is great for grapes, but terrible for wine, so store it in a dark place. Most wine bottles are tinted for added protection from the sun on its journey from cellar to you, though there are many examples of clear bottles (like the 2023 bottling of Tregole's white Sangiovese) which need extra care to protect from sunlight. That golden cellophane wrapped around your clear bottle of Cristal isn't just for looks.
3. Keep the corks moist
This isn't relevant for screwcaps of course, but as the vast majority of our range uses cork closures this is an important consideration for storing Vino Cammino wine.
A dry cork is much more likely to shrink and crack, which allows air in and/or wine out. That means unwanted oxidation and a reduction in quality and complexity when you open it.
There are two ways to keep corks moist. Doing both is best but the first is most important.
The first and easiest way uses the wine in the bottle. That's the reason it is important to store your bottles with cork closures on their sides, or at an angle which ensures the wine is in full contact with the cork.
The other way is to ensure the place you store them has a good level of humidity. Roughly 60-80% humidity is great for long term storage. Higher won't hurt the wine, but will likely cause some water/mold damage to your labels. Terrace houses in Sydney; this is your moment to shine! Wine fridges are built to maintain this level of humidity, but a deep cellar will often hover around this level too.
The photo above shows the build up of blankets of mould covering bottles in a humid Vouvray cellar. Perfect for ageing but that's why they don't label the bottles until they are ready to ship them.
4. Keep the temperature stable
In a perfect world, you'll have your wine at a constant temperature, somewhere between 10 and 15 degrees (mimicking those French caves). A deep cellar will do this naturally, and wine fridges are designed for this too. If you're using anywhere else, some fluctuation over the course of seasons is fine (try not to let it get above 20). What you really want to avoid are diurnal (daily) fluctuations, which, like sunlight, are great for grape growing, but terrible for wine storage.
5. Avoid vibration
Vibrations over a long time period can prematurely age wine. So it's best to avoid storing near a source of vibration such as a washing machine. This is also the reason storing wine in a regular fridge is not recommended, even if you have it at a warmer setting than usual. Wine fridges are specially made to avoid vibrations.