Although we have heard a lot of stories about how the taste of wine improve over age, storing wine just about anywhere for many years will not really improve the taste of your wine. In fact, many experts believe that storing wine in ordinary wine cabinets will not really do your wine any good at all. Wines need to age in a special place in order for it to taste good that is why all wine producers have their own specially made cellars where they age their wine for a certain period of time. They don’t just store their wines in wine cabinets and pray that the wine will taste just as good as it should.
Keeping Bottled Wine
Most bottled wines are not really meant to be kept for a long, long time. Cheaper bottles of wine are meant to be consumed within a short period of time. The quality of cheap wines deteriorates faster compared to its more expensive counterpart. How long should you keep your wine in your wine cabinet? According to experts, keeping your white wine in a wine cabinet for more than two years from its vintage date will alter the taste of the white wine. In fact, many types of white wines become stale when stored inside the wine cabinet for a long time. On the other hand, red wines have longer staying power compared to white wine. You can keep the red wine in your wine cabinet for up to three years from its vintage date. Just make sure that you do not expose your red wine to direct sunlight and erratic changes in the temperature because this can spoil the taste of the wine.
Is It Possible To Store Your Wine In The Wine Cabinet For A Longer Period Of Time?
Yes, it is possible to prolong the life of your wine by storing it in a dark place with controlled temperature. Note that the light of the sun can affect the condition of the wine so it is very important to store your wine in a place which is hidden from the sun. On the other hand, unstable temperature will hasten the spoiling of the wine so if you really want to store your wine for a few years before drinking it, it would be best for you to get a wine cabinet that is suitable for that purpose. To make sure that your wine is protected from the light of the sun, place your wine cabinet in your basement where the light of the sun could not reach it.
Wine Cabinets: How To Store Your Wine To Last A Long Time
Wine Food Pairing: How To Choose The Best Wine To Go With Vegetarian Diet
Being a vegetarian is a good thing. According to experts, eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables is very good to your body. In fact, many studies show that a vegetarian diet can prevent certain types of cancer. To complete your vegetarian diet, you should choose the right type of wine to go with your dishes. Wine food pairing is very important to help you enjoy your meals to the fullest. You don’t really have to be a chef to know about wine food pairing. A lot of people who do not have any formal training in preparing food learn wine food pairing on their own so do not worry about it. To give you some ideas about wine food pairing, here are some pointers for you.
Matching The Taste Of Your Food With Your Wine
Your taste in food affects the way to do wine food paring. If you like strongly flavored dishes choose some robust red wines to go with it. Spicy dishes go well with sweet red wine. Syrah or cabernet sauvignon goes well with dishes that contain plenty of garlic and other strong spices while a sangiovese will enhance the taste of your tomato-based dishes. If you cannot find any of these red wines to go with your strongly flavored dishes, other types of red wines will do just fine. There are actually plenty of red wines that you can choose from when doing wine food pairing. The limits here is your creativity and your ingenuity so go ahead and experiment with your food and your wine. According to experts, if you want to know which red wine goes well with your food, sample as many red wines as you can and compare their taste. Since red wine is good for your health, you need not worry about drinking a couple of glasses per day.
While red wine goes well with food that are strongly flavored, white wine are good with food that have more subtle taste. White wines are very easy on the taste buds and are very good when paired with lighter meals. Furthermore, there are plenty of white wines flavors that you can choose from such as apple, citrus, lemon, pear, lime, pineapple, grapefruit, melon, butter, herb, floral and others. Most of these flavors go well with light meals so you will not really have a hard time matching the taste of your food and your wine.
Wine Storage: Which Wines can I keep?
In spite of all of those wonderful old movies that show great cellars filled with every imaginable vintage of wine, not all styles lend themselves well to wine storage. In fact, if you are planning to begin a wine cellar or any type of wine storage, it is good to check with your wine dealer to make sure just how long that favorite bottle will last before it starts to go bad.
Basic Wine Storage Information:
The reason that so many wine cellars are found in the basement is two fold: first, too much air can spoil a wine as fast as too much heat. The coolest places around are also those where too much air is not a problem—the basement. So, if you can, start storing your favorite bottles where the spiders and mice tend to live and the children are afraid to visit, that dusky and dank basement that you have been meaning to finish.
Additional benefits to using that basement for your wine storage facility include a greater chance that the corks on your wine will not crack due to getting dried out and there usually is not an excess of light down there. Both of these can dramatically shorten wine storage time, so it is important to be aware of not only air and temperature, but also moisture and light.
Have you ever wondered why wine storage racks are horizontal rather than vertical? Did you think that it was a space-thing? Well, the truth is that when you store your bottle horizontally rather than vertically, the corks remain moist from the enclosed wine, which also helps prevent cracking and drying.
Wine Storage and Styles:
If the wine is under ten dollars, then do not try to store it: it will not keep past six months, because it was not bottled to do so. Other, more expensive wines can be stored for a period of time, but there is a difference between whites and reds. Wine storage time frames for white wines are generally shorter than those for reds; in fact, it is recommended that Reislings and Chardonnays be consumed within five years for optimum taste.
The only red wines that are comparable in wine storage time frame to the whites are those that cost between twelve and twenty-five dollars or all of the Syrahs and Shiraz varieties. Otherwise, red wine storage can be in excess of five years and sometimes more than fifteen. So, it is always a good idea to check with your wine dealer when you are going to purchase a good bottle of wine, then mark it on the calendar, because there can be no better way to celebrate a college graduation than with a wine purchased on the first day of school.
The Value Of Wine Storage Racks
Wine is a very popular beverage especially in Europe where it is consumed day and night. Americans also like wine but it s usually reserved for evenings and special occasions. Most of the people who like wine, keep some in store at their homes in case they have guests or need to entertain.
The Use of Having Wine Storage Racks
Wine is usually stored on its side, especially if it is still unopened. You will need wine storage racks to store several bottles of wine. Wine storage racks can be any size, depending on your preference and need. If you usually store a lot of wine bottles, you can have a rack for entertaining in your kitchen and bigger wine storage racks in your cellar where you could keep several bottles of wine.
Wine storage racks are very useful in storing bottles of wine because you can organize them according to date and region. Organization is needed when you deal with a large number of wine bottles. There are several aspects with which you can store your bottles of wine like the type of grapes used or the region from which the wine was made in or the date of its production.
The larger wine storage racks are usually made from wood. Metal is also an option for larger racks, it all depends on your needs and preference although, most professional wine cellars do use wooden wine storage racks. The smaller wine rack you might have in your kitchen could also be made from wood or metal.
The wine storage racks usually hold tilted bottles so they are usually thicker at the sides. They would appear like bookshelves but may have small wooden slots where the bottles should go. Other wine storage racks allow you to stack up the wine in diamond shaped receptacles one over the other. Yet another design for wine storage racks is wooden shelves with small holes big enough for the neck of the bottle to go through. The bottles are laid down with their bottoms tilted upwards and their necks in the holes.
Whatever design you might want for your wine storage racks keep in mind the durability of the rack to ensure it does not cave due to the pressure of several bottles of wine. Do not overload the rack or you might risk losing several hundreds of dollars worth of wine. It is also best to keep the rack away from sunlight and hot or warm places to keep the wines’ temperature low.