You were enjoying a delightful mouthwatering meal at your friends house last night, and he took you into his cellar to choose the wine for the evening. As you walked into his cellar you were seduced by the ambiance of their collected bottles, all carefully laid down and tagged, perfectly stacked on their wooden racks, the mood accentuated by the subtle lighting, and then their was a warm and fuzzy stirring sensation within your self as you looked around; it was romantic.
The romance was strong. You love wine but while in the cellar you couldn’t help feeling anxious in anticipation and expectation. You can only imagine what your friend feels for his wine collection, after building his collection through years of sacrifice from immediate indulgence, he is patiently waiting, slowly leading each individual bottle through a life of its own, watching it slowly develop for its right moment for consumption.
After a restless sleep, you awake to the cool morning, that warm and fuzzy feeling still residing in your body. The romance is still strong. You want a cellar of your own. Your imagination is running wild, there could be nothing better than slowly descending upon a set of dimly lit stairs into a cool climate controlled room to retrieve a prized bottle that you have patiently waited 10 years to develop, checking its development from a young powerful boisterous teenager into a mellower, more refined and complex mature wine, each year you have checked its progress and you believe its ready to drink. The excitement is killing you, you want to scream, you have waited so long, to slowly savor this wine.
Bang, back to reality buster. Where are you going to keep all this wine? You are not a wine novice, you know your stuff. All you want to do is go shopping, wine shopping! Lets get the cellar sorted first so you can look after all this precious wine. Wine is a living thing, its changes over time and it needs to be cared for like a child, your child.
The wine nursery: conditions your baby’s will need to mature gracefully.
Stable temperature: This is the single most important prerequisite for cellaring wine long term. Between 12ºC and 18ºC is ideal. A constant temperature prevents the process of the cork from expanction and contraction that occurs when it heats up and cools down. We don’t want the cork to move, because winemakers world wind work very hard to keep air out of their wine, and if the temperature is changing the cork is moving which lets air into the bottle, causing the wine to oxidize. Although stable temperature is the most important factor in cellaring wine, it can be one of the most difficult to achieve. Australia is defiantly not known for its mild climate and gentle temperature variation, and what about Melbourne? Four seasons in one day. Cellaring wine in our country, need a bit of intervention, take the role of mother nature into your own hands for your wines and get the temperature right. Insulation, specially made cooling units, a climate controlled wine cabinet or go ungrounded the possibilities are endless, but stable temperature must be achieved. Or you will be asking your guests if they would like a glass of vinegar with their roast lamb rump.
2. Fussy little things these wines, its like trying to feed bruccel sprouts to a 2 year old. Hello, im a wine and I like it humid! So there has been triumph and a stable temperature of 15 ºC has been achieved, now we need some good relative humidity. Between 65 per cent and 75 per cent is best for the long haul. If it gets to dry the corks are going to be like a desert and dry out, becoming brittle and loosing their elasticity that makes them an effective seal. If it gets to humid and there is to much moisture in the air, mold may start to grow attacking the corks and the labels. You want your wine looking pristine don’t you?
3. Just like vampires, wine doesn’t like the light, so keep them in the dark. Wines are creatures of the night, emerging from their long hibernation in your cellar for just one moment of glory. Their glory is going to be shattered if they have had a life on display, continually in the spotlight. Light does damage, even on tinted bottles. Although ultraviolet light hastens the aging process it is at a cost, the wines tasting dull. Easily achieved, keep you wine hidden from the world in a dark, or even better pitch black, location. You don’t need to walk around with a spotlight when you need to get a bottle, intermittent artificial light has minimal effect on a wine, but daylight should be avoided at all costs.
4. once the wines found its place it doesn’t like to be moved. For best results, keep your wines away from any vibrations. Speakers, stairs, the fridge, and even you. They want to lay still and not be disturbed until the glorious day that they are opened. Movement in the wine can stir up sediment, causing the wine to go hazy. Understanding this requires a bit of science. Are you ready? When a wine is developing there is a chemical process happening inside the bottle where by the wine produces larger and more complex molecules that eventually fall out of the wine as sediment, under stable conditions these are able to settle at the bottom of the bottle, allowing the wine to fully develop. If there is a constant traffic rumbling across the top of the cellar, it causes movement which disrupts these process, stirring the sediment and mixing it through the wine.
The cellar is sorted, a constant temperature of 15ºC has been achieved along with, humidity between 65% and 75%, its dark and vibration free and there is a racking system in place. Its time to spend your hard earned bucks on some quality wine. This is the part you have been looking forward to, the fun part, selecting wines that will benefit from ageing. I cellar purchase is considered between 6 to 12 bottles or more of the same wine, therefore allowing you to compare the wines development over time.
The wine and quantity you purchase for cellaring depends a lot on your own personal wine position. What you normally like, how often you drink, how much room you have for storage, what food you eat, along with many other variables. Not all wine is intended for cellaring, considering that most wine bought is drunk within 72 hours of its purchase, wine makers have started making wine that is ready to drink now and won’t benefit from extended cellaring. When looking for wine to cellar the most important aspect of the wine is its balance how well does the tannin, acid, flavors marry together to cerate balance, is it a big and powerful wine or a soft and flabby wine. If a wine is balanced there is a good chance that their will be a benefit of cellaring. It is helpful to have a good relationship with a knowledgeable wine merchant as he/she will be able to guide you to which wines would be good cellar candidates and also will begin to learn your preferences and his selections will be mindful of that. Also take into account that your taste for wine will evolve over time and that what you like today may not necessarily be what you like tomorrow.
In my view, here is a list of varieties and regions that can act as a guide to which wine to select for the purpose of cellaring. Riesling from Eden and Clare Valley in SA, Canberra and Tasmania. Chardonnay from Margaret River in WA, Beechworth and the Yarra Valley in Victoria and Hunter Valley in NSW and the Adelaide Hills in SA. Semillon from Hunter Valley or the Barossa Valley in SA. Shiraz from McLaren Vale, Barossa Valley, Clare, Heathcote, Bendigo and Hunter Valley. Cabernet Sauvignon from Coonawarra in SA, Margaret River or the Yarra Valley. Pinot Noir from Yarra Valley, Geelong or Mornington Peninsula.
Now that your wine is safely hibernating with in the confines of your cellar, you need to implement some sort of management or inventory process. There is nothing worse that going to get a prized bottle to impress someone only to find upon opening that the wine is well past its peak. For keeping track of what’s in your cellar there is many options, you could get a cellar book, use neck tags, there are a variety of software packages available or you could opt to set up your own spreadsheet.
Peak drinking times differ greatly between wines, they are affected by the conditions they were stored in, the vintage of the wine and the type of wine. Therefore monitoring them your self through records and regular tasting at intervals of 6-12months and more frequently as the wine nears maturity. You should remember the golden rule when cellaring, its better to drink it to young that too old.
Balance in the cellar is important. You should want to achieve a balanced cellar, with a mix of wines for short, medium, and long term cellaring. Otherwise all your wine with mature together and you will have nothing mature to drink for the years it takes to age, then a cellar full of wine ready to be drunk all at the same time. By achieving balance you will have something different to drink at all times. It is not recommended that you go out and fill your entire cellar all at once either. Joyfully let your collection accumulate over time, over many vintages therefore allowing you to pick the best wine from the best vintages year in, year out over a range of regions, producers and styles. This approach allows you the wine drinker access to a wide range of styles, that mature differently and at different rates a variety of wines that will bring you immense enjoyment over the years to follow.
At this point you can start looking at accessories. You should already have purchased a device that measures the minimum and maximum temperature and humidity, if only for your own piece of mind. There is a wide range of decanters on the market which you will find will become ever increasingly important especially when opening older bottles. Find one or two that are both decorative and functional. You must not forget the most important tool for the wine drinker, the corkscrew. Get rid of that two dollar one that you got at the supermarket as they have a tendency to break the delicate cork. Instead get your self a quality corkscrew one with a thin worm is best as it doesn’t expand the cork as much, the double jointed ones you see waiters use at restaurants is probably best and will last for many years while not breaking the bank. Have you lent a thought to what you are going to drink your wine out of? A coffee mug perhaps, I think not. Invest in some quality glass ware where that bowl of the glass is big enough to allow the wine to move. I cannot understate how important glass ware is, it really can change your drinking experience.
Finally enjoy your road to discovery, don’t be afraid to try new wines and have fun watching your wines evolve in the bottle over time as you carefully nurture them and share them with family and friends. A great bottle of wine can be talked for years to come.
