Summer’s coming so no doubt you’ll be spending more time enjoying the great Kiwi outdoors, and probably visiting some of our amazing wineries for brunch, lunch, platters, etc. to catch-up with friends and family, or just to chill and relax, whilst of course sampling their latest award winning wines.
More often than not on these visits the cellar door will be too tempting to merely pass on by, and you will be enticed to take advantage of their special offer, or to just buy a few bottles of the wine you’ve so enjoyed that day.
Before you know it, you are a “wine collector”, and back at home you are battling with little storage space for this burgeoning collection of vintages.
The good news is that we at Winerax are here to help!
We understand how tricky it can be to store wine where space constraints prevail; we know that stacking cardboard boxes full of wine in tiny corners around the house or in the shed is not ideal, nor practical, or even suitable for wine.
So we have designed New Zealand’s best wine rack to fit a myriad of spaces, that makes it ideal for that narrow space tucked away in your kitchen, that cubby hole under the stairs, or to tidy-up that floor space in your shed. https://winerax.co.nz/pages/gallery
Even better still, it’s modular, so you are not restricted to a “one size fits all solution”, and it can grow in step with your wine collection, and be configured to suit you and your storage space.
All you need to decide is where to store your wine? Some help here too: always try and locate a cool, dark place to store your wine - on display on your kitchen top or dining room sideboard is probably not the right choice!
Light exposure and temperature are arguably the two most important criteria for selecting a storage space.
A golden rule of thumb is that “wine loves the dark”. Direct sunlight might be great for plants, but its UV rays can be especially damaging for wine, and as we love to build our homes to maximise the light available from the sun this can be a problem for wine storag!. Step forward a cupboard, space under the stairs, or the shed, all ideal homes for your wine, and Winerax’s cleverley designed modular storage system is the perfect solution to realize the potential of these spaces for this purpose.
Wine also prefers a stable temperature, and ideally one between 13c and 18c; although not absolutely critical unless you intend to store your wine for a number of years, but do still try and find a space where the temperature does not swing dramatically. So probably best to avoid hot water or heating pipes, next to the cooker or fridge, and away from the fire.
Other notable selection considerations are humidity, bottle orientation, and movement or vibration:
The optimum humidity is said to be between 70-75%, but unless you have a purpose built room or cellar this might be difficult to monitor and maintain, but again, unless you intend to store your wine for a considerable number of years this should not be a major concern.
If you’re not planning on drinking a bottle immediately, laying it flat is important, especially if the bottle is sealed with a cork; problems can arise if the cork dries up as it can then allow oxygen to enter the bottle, causing the wine to oxidize, and this is a reason why most wine racks, and Winerax wine racks too, are designed to store wine bottles on their sides - this position allows the cork to stay in contact with the wine and not dry out.
Finally, movement or vibration also need to be avoided, as moving wine often will hasten the aging process. So once you have gotten your bottles home, you want to store them in a place where they will not be moved and can be left until you are ready to drink the wine, and if stored correctly they will taste as good, if not better, than your memory of them on that summer’s day back at the winery.
So there you have it, some simple advice to help find the perfect place to store your wine, and as always, if you've any questions, want some advice, or need help configuring a wine rack for that awkward space, get in touch with us here at Winerax, we’re only too happy to help.