Tips on short-term wine storage

Storing wine appropriately and serving it at the proper temperature are among the easiest things to do that’ll put a smile on any wine lover’s face.

Before I go on about your specific situation, let's quickly review the criteria that make ideal wine storage situations.

Temperature: 55 degrees. And that should be constant.

Humidity: 70 percent or better.

Light: infrequent and at low levels.

Vibration: none. That includes rumbling refrigerator motors.

Aside from the standard instruction of keeping the bottle on its side, which does not apply to screwtop wines, you’re good to go.

Now, as for your burgeoning wine collection, you can confidently keep the extra bottles in your basement. When you are ready to drink them just bring the bottles up and put them in your refrigerator or ice bucket until they are around proper service temperature.

Should you be worried that some of your wines are not quietly waiting for you in ideal conditions? No, you shouldn't. Ideal storage conditions are only important for long-term storage. And I'm talking years, if not decades. In the short term, wine lovers need only concern themselves with avoiding extreme conditions, such as temperatures above 85 degrees or below 30; desert-like dryness; rock concert-level spotlights; and jackhammer-infested construction sites.

But here is a little rain on what is otherwise a sunny parade for you, Anne. Your mini wine fridge likely does not protect your babies from any of the four important storage rules mentioned above, not even the temperature guideline. Unless it has a solid door or shaded glass to keep out ultraviolet light, humidity control, and a vibration-free cooling unit, your fridge is merely keeping your wine at or very near service temperature. The $150 units I’ve seen for sale at Home Depot have as much as 5-degree swings above and below their set temperature. This is not considered constant.

So, are all those kitchen storage units that hold a case or three of wine useless? Heck no! I wish that restaurant in River Edge had one, that’s for sure.

The fact is most people serve their wines at the wrong temperatures. We either dunk our whites in ice until they are Arctic cold or we serve our reds at room temperature, which is an arcane concept going back a hundred years or more when rooms were closer to 60 degrees, not an air-conditioned or heated 72 degrees.

Anne, every time you take a bottle out of your little fridge, it’s pretty close to where it needs to be temperature-wise. And when you serve that wine, you are giving that bottle its best chance to taste as good as it possibly can. This puts you miles ahead of most wine lovers.

As for those few bottles that you want to hold on to for a special moment, either engineer for that moment to occur in the next two years or try to find a friend who truly has proper storage facilities. Otherwise, you are just spoiling for a future disappointment.

Gil Kulers is a certified wine educator with the Society of Wine Educators and teaches in-home wine classes. You can reach him at Gil.Kulers@WineKulers.com.