561987 Thu Oct 02 20:27:32 -0700 2008 13 34 Wine 0 4078422 We've just returned from Napa/Sonoma. Thanks for the info on which wineries to hit. We did go a bit crazy on the wine buying and now have more than our little 36 bottle wine frig will hold. We did not buy wine to put away...we're too old to save wine for years, we buy it to drink now but we can't drink all that we bought in the immediate future.. so here's the question. Can we keep wine in the a regular refrigerator or is that a no no? Usually we keep the reds in the wine frig and the whites in the frig but we have more than 36 bottles of red now. We also have a case of champagne..is the frig okay? Thanks! Thu Oct 02 20:27:32 -0700 2008 90833 estarae 1 4078459 For wine that you will be drinking over the next year, it should be fine to just keep in a closet or anywhere else in the house where you don't see big temperature swings, and just put the wine in the appropriate fridge as you are ready to drink. (We always have a few bottles of white + something sparkling in the regular fridge, sometimes a bottle will be there for a couple of months without any ill effects). Thu Oct 02 20:52:37 -0700 2008 4078422 106056 firecooked 2 4078622 Hi Estarae, Firecooked's advice is on the spot: Big temperature swings are a no-no. My guess is your fridge is set at 50 F (10 C), so putting red and white wine inside is no problem. What we do at home is is keep the white in the fridge 'cos we have whites that are meant to be drunk in 1-2 years. The reds we keep in a cool, dark place in the house. Fri Oct 03 00:06:01 -0700 2008 4078459 224157 girobike 3 4082017 Big temperature swings are not good but if you live in the SW a constantly high temperature is perhaps worst. I bet you have heard the word 'estufado', the process by which Madeira wines are made. Originally, the wines travelled from Madeira to the UK and suffered greatly of high temperature in the ship's hold. The trip took 3/4 months at most, so watch your bottles, it may happen faster than you think. Also, dryness is a big problem over the long term, it causes corks to shrink which lets air and airborne agents in and lets wine seep out. You know it's happening when you feel something tacky around and about the capsule. Not good! Keep them in the fridge but long time ageing is not an option. Sat Oct 04 15:50:17 -0700 2008 4078622 59907 froggio 1 4088734 estarae.....your intuition is good , put the wines in your fridge . Tue Oct 07 14:05:21 -0700 2008 4078422 80122 pinotho 1 4090080 Most importantly . . . others may already know this, but I do not: where do you live? Wed Oct 08 05:52:15 -0700 2008 4078422 28122 zin1953 1 4094973 This is not meant to contradict anyone's advice, but the simple - and rather elusive - truth may save you a bit of trouble - First of all, yes, you can put the wine in your regular refrigerator. Short of freezing, which is actually well below the 32 F where water freezes, cold will not harm wine. It will age more slowly, but that's probably of little concern. For reds, and certain whites (depending on your preference), it will just require you to remove them a few minutes/hours before you intend to serve them to allow them to come to room temp. Temperature fluctuations - in and of themselves - do not harm wine. The harm is only caused when the temperatures fluctuates into the HIGH end of the spectrum - which only really BEGINS at 70 F. If the bottle's fill is extremely high, and if the bottle is stored with the cork in complete contact with the wine, you might get a little ullage (wine seeping out through cork), or cork movement, but both are highly unlikely and harmless for the wine. The basic point is this - heat makes wine advance more quickly, cold, less quickly. I'll spare you the math, but a general rule of thumb is this - at 72-73 F or so, a wine will advance at roughly 3 times the rate it would if it were stored at 55 F. The advance gets worse as temperatures get higher, but in general, the effects of moderate heat - read 'room temp' - on wine are greatly overstated. G Fri Oct 10 00:59:09 -0700 2008 4078422 56801 georgempavlov 2 4094995 George is absolutely, 100% spot-on. Fri Oct 10 02:34:29 -0700 2008 4094973 224157 girobike 2 4097807 No. Just personal experience . . . I absolutely agree that the warmer the temperature, the more rapidly the wine will age. But when you wrote, "the effects of moderate heat - read 'room temp' - on wine are greatly overstated," my first thought was the long battle we had with our insurance adjuster . . . I had a 40' container coming in filled with 1995 Burgundies (port of entry Oakland, CA). It was a WORKING reefer, but instead of the thermostat being set prior to leaving Marsailles at 10-12℃ (approx. 50-54℉), it was mistakenly set at 22-24℃ (72-75℉) . . . It took nearly 18 months for the insurance company to agree to write-off the wines as a total loss and to destroy them, rather than pay us off and attempt to recoup some of their loss by selling the wines into the marketplace. Sat Oct 11 11:14:31 -0700 2008 4097123 28122 zin1953 3 4097882 ouch, that really hurts. I'm going to Burgundy next month, and will post pics in another thread. Sat Oct 11 11:56:30 -0700 2008 4097807 224157 girobike 3 4098105 On my Mac, I just go to "Edit/Special Characters" . . . On a PC, I just type them in WordPerfect (or MS Word) and then cut-and-paste . . . Sat Oct 11 14:38:40 -0700 2008 4098090 28122 zin1953 3 4098372 Sorry about that - truly awful. And Pinot is probably the most prone to abuses of any varietal... Speaking as a Burgundy lover - that hurts! Sat Oct 11 17:51:02 -0700 2008 4097807 56801 georgempavlov 3 4099507 When my wine fridge overflows (in other words, regularly) I keep wines at house temp (73F) on a rack in the dining room. I have not had any problems with anything that I've drunk within 6-12 months. On the other hand, if the A/C is not kept running and temperature fluctuates, the wine can quickly get ruined. Sun Oct 12 13:20:14 -0700 2008 4097807 35525 Frodnesor 4 4099965 A temperature in the low 70's in and of itself is not a problem PROVIDED a) you are the one drinking the wine, and b) you aren't planning on aging any of those wines "long-term." (I presume if _______ was meant for long-term cellaring, you'd pull something out of the wine fridge and put the candidate for cellaring in the fridge.) But the main problem with the container was getting the insurance company to understand that not only were the wines "ahead of schedule" in terms of their development (pre-mature maturity?), but to then put them into the marketplace would defraud potential customers who would want to cellar the bottles of Chambertin, Charmes-Chambertin, Musigny, Richbourg, Grands-Échezeaux (and so on) that were already mature . . . . It took several tastings (with winemakers hired by the insurance co. to act as consultants), and a little over a year and a half, to get the insurance co. to understand the problem. As I said, we wouldn't accept the payout until we had guarantees that the wines would NOT be sold into the marketplace. Unfortunately, this was NOT the case with the inventories of various New Orleans restaurants and retailers post-Katrina . . . . Sun Oct 12 18:08:05 -0700 2008 4099507 28122 zin1953