Been looking for a good place to say thanks for all your casts. Despite drinking and learning about wine for so long, i learn something new in each of them. Really appreciate your time and work to share your knowledge. A cast on the wine traditions of eastern europe could be interesting as well
Woo woo! Great subject! Thanks for the shout out. I'm going to show this video to my wife because she does not believe me that I'm correct in where I keep the temp in my wine fridge.
My pleasure. Thanks again for featuring my casts. The last thing I want is to end up in the middle of a Wine on the Dime family argument, but, hey, anything to keep the wine happy. Cheers!
Also thanks to your winecasts i passed the exams to become sommellier in Italy. Thanks! I was wandering something about wine Savers. Do you know any good one to suggests ? Do you appreciate them in general ?
Great stuff as always... So, all that useful info being said, I would love your input here: I am selectively putting together my 60th birthday wine fridge collection - to open 5 years from now - unfortunately using the single bottle method. I have the usual suspects (cabs, bordeauxs, and syrahs, as well as a barolo, brunello, and amarone). I am looking for ideas on some more obscure reds to make it more intetesting. I would appreciate your thoughts on some fun additions. Thx.
Thank you for another superior production! Can the alcohol content of a wine diminish as it ages? I imagine that a fortune awaits the party who transforms the art of aging wine into a science based process. Cheers
As far as I know, alcohol doesn't diminish over time. It would be curious to see what would happen if what's actually going on in aging were better understood. Despite the loss of some of the "romance" of aging, it would probably be a good thing if consumers had a better idea of what the drink window of a wine really were. Here's to hoping for more research! Cheers!
Thank you Unknown Winecaster. Of anyone I've heard address the topic of aging, you are the most informative, and you are the Winecaster best equipped to explore and explain the chemistry of wine in general. I appreciate your approach. There seems to be much room for producers of quality wines to improve their product. On another cast I just heard Dominique Lafon from Burgundy explain that five years after bottling, all the bottles in a case of his wine are different from each other. This hardly optimal. Cheers
That's an interesting observation. The whole natural wine movement, by contrast, celebrates the uniqueness that you can find in each bottle when you use an extremely low-intervention approach to wine making. I actually get the charm that comes with that element of surprise, but, I also expect a certain amount of consistency so that I can enjoy the wine in an intentional way that makes the most of what I spend on it. Cheers!
Rolling the dice on a natural wine will always be better than a predictable bottle two buck upchuck or barefoot dungeon. My bias leans in favor of sulphur and screwcaps. Cheers
Hello and thank you for all the knowledge shared, the way it is broken down and presented is one of a kind. I am a wine enthousiast and about to give my exams on the 2nd level of WSET next week. Your videos have been of great help to me especially the appellation ones. I have a question regarding this video... I recently heard that the cork should be changed too, even if the wine is cellared in perfect conditions. This sould be done approximately every 4-5 years preferably at the wine's winery because you need to fill the bottle with nitrogen, plus get your bottle filled with the same wine (not the same vintage obviously) because of the spillage caused after pushing the nitrogen in to push the oxygen out. What are your thoughts on the whole cork thing? Should we try to change it every once in a while if we own a wine with great aging potential? Excuse my long comment and any mistakes in English while it is not my natal language
Thanks for the comment and question. I have heard about re-corking (or reconditioning) but not every 4-5 years -- more like every 30-50 years (thought possibly as little as say 15 years). It's not free of controversy as a practice and here's a link to an article that can say more about it. www.wineguy.co.nz/index.php/81-all-about-wine/849-recorking I hope that's helpful and thank you again for your message. Cheers!
I have a question I haven't seen really addressed by many experts. I know eurocave and similar high end cellars have humidity control for the perfect wine aging environment, but how about the cheaper thermoelectric wine fridges on the market? I know they keep the right temp, but how reasonable is it to keep wines for aging in them? I have a relatively modest collection of age worthy wines (about 12-15) and can't really justify the expensive of a humidity controlled unit. Should I worry about those wines going bad in a wine fridge environment at 55 degrees? Should I try DIY humidity solutions?
Thanks for the question, and let me preface it by saying that I don't have much expertise with the various wine fridges out there. I don't know what data are out there on the long term effectiveness of fridges in terms of maintaining proper humidity. I'll tell you what I do, which is very do it yourself, and maybe that'll have some value for you. My husband and I used to keep our cellar in a professional storage facility dedicated to wine storage but we couldn't continue to justify the cost (around $1500 per year), so we bought a stainless steel rack from Costco for about $80 dollars, fitted it with cardboard sides (made from the box it came in) to keep the bottles from rolling out and away we went. You can see a brief video of the set up in my Instagram feed. We keep it in a room on the bottom floor of our townhouse that gets minimal sun exposure (East facing, most morning sun blocked by the hill we live at the bottom of) and, since we live in Seattle, we rely on natural humidity to keep the corks moist. During the winter the temperature stays between 55 and 60 degrees and we anticipate it won't get much above 70 during the summer. None of that is "optimal" but it's saving us a bunch of money, and, as you can guess from the video, I'm not too stressed out about my wine not aging in an "optimal" environment" as long as it remains in a "reasonable" environment. Frankly, at this point, I'm more worried about an earthquake (knock wood) than I am about the wine not aging well. Hope that's in some way helpful. Cheers!
Thank you for this content! My wife and I just got into wine this year, and am happy to have found such objective, informative casts. Cheers!
Been looking for a good place to say thanks for all your casts. Despite drinking and learning about wine for so long, i learn something new in each of them. Really appreciate your time and work to share your knowledge. A cast on the wine traditions of eastern europe could be interesting as well
As always - crisp, concise and without pretension. Love your work. Cheers
Woo woo! Great subject! Thanks for the shout out. I'm going to show this video to my wife because she does not believe me that I'm correct in where I keep the temp in my wine fridge.
My pleasure. Thanks again for featuring my casts. The last thing I want is to end up in the middle of a Wine on the Dime family argument, but, hey, anything to keep the wine happy. Cheers!
It's not an argument now. It's just settled.
These casts are amazing. TUW, I wish I knew who you are. I’d happily pay for this content (rest of internet please don’t @me).
Thank you, that's very kind. Don't worry, I don't plan on charging for it. I'm just glad others are finding it useful. Cheers!
The Unknown Winecaster totally agree, great casts!
This was very helpful, thank you.
Also thanks to your winecasts i passed the exams to become sommellier in Italy. Thanks! I was wandering something about wine Savers. Do you know any good one to suggests ? Do you appreciate them in general ?
Great stuff as always... So, all that useful info being said, I would love your input here: I am selectively putting together my 60th birthday wine fridge collection - to open 5 years from now - unfortunately using the single bottle method. I have the usual suspects (cabs, bordeauxs, and syrahs, as well as a barolo, brunello, and amarone). I am looking for ideas on some more obscure reds to make it more intetesting. I would appreciate your thoughts on some fun additions. Thx.
Thank you for another superior production! Can the alcohol content of a wine diminish as it ages?
I imagine that a fortune awaits the party who transforms the art of aging wine into a science based process. Cheers
As far as I know, alcohol doesn't diminish over time. It would be curious to see what would happen if what's actually going on in aging were better understood. Despite the loss of some of the "romance" of aging, it would probably be a good thing if consumers had a better idea of what the drink window of a wine really were. Here's to hoping for more research! Cheers!
Thank you Unknown Winecaster. Of anyone I've heard address the topic of aging, you are the most informative, and you are the Winecaster best equipped to explore and explain the chemistry of wine in general. I appreciate your approach.
There seems to be much room for producers of quality wines to improve their product. On another cast I just heard Dominique Lafon from Burgundy explain that five years after bottling, all the bottles in a case of his wine are different from each other. This hardly optimal. Cheers
That's an interesting observation. The whole natural wine movement, by contrast, celebrates the uniqueness that you can find in each bottle when you use an extremely low-intervention approach to wine making. I actually get the charm that comes with that element of surprise, but, I also expect a certain amount of consistency so that I can enjoy the wine in an intentional way that makes the most of what I spend on it. Cheers!
Rolling the dice on a natural wine will always be better than a predictable bottle two buck upchuck or barefoot dungeon. My bias leans in favor of sulphur and screwcaps. Cheers
Hello and thank you for all the knowledge shared, the way it is broken down and presented is one of a kind. I am a wine enthousiast and about to give my exams on the 2nd level of WSET next week. Your videos have been of great help to me especially the appellation ones.
I have a question regarding this video... I recently heard that the cork should be changed too, even if the wine is cellared in perfect conditions. This sould be done approximately every 4-5 years preferably at the wine's winery because you need to fill the bottle with nitrogen, plus get your bottle filled with the same wine (not the same vintage obviously) because of the spillage caused after pushing the nitrogen in to push the oxygen out. What are your thoughts on the whole cork thing? Should we try to change it every once in a while if we own a wine with great aging potential? Excuse my long comment and any mistakes in English while it is not my natal language
Thanks for the comment and question. I have heard about re-corking (or reconditioning) but not every 4-5 years -- more like every 30-50 years (thought possibly as little as say 15 years). It's not free of controversy as a practice and here's a link to an article that can say more about it. www.wineguy.co.nz/index.php/81-all-about-wine/849-recorking I hope that's helpful and thank you again for your message. Cheers!
I have a question I haven't seen really addressed by many experts. I know eurocave and similar high end cellars have humidity control for the perfect wine aging environment, but how about the cheaper thermoelectric wine fridges on the market? I know they keep the right temp, but how reasonable is it to keep wines for aging in them? I have a relatively modest collection of age worthy wines (about 12-15) and can't really justify the expensive of a humidity controlled unit. Should I worry about those wines going bad in a wine fridge environment at 55 degrees? Should I try DIY humidity solutions?
Thanks for the question, and let me preface it by saying that I don't have much expertise with the various wine fridges out there. I don't know what data are out there on the long term effectiveness of fridges in terms of maintaining proper humidity. I'll tell you what I do, which is very do it yourself, and maybe that'll have some value for you. My husband and I used to keep our cellar in a professional storage facility dedicated to wine storage but we couldn't continue to justify the cost (around $1500 per year), so we bought a stainless steel rack from Costco for about $80 dollars, fitted it with cardboard sides (made from the box it came in) to keep the bottles from rolling out and away we went. You can see a brief video of the set up in my Instagram feed. We keep it in a room on the bottom floor of our townhouse that gets minimal sun exposure (East facing, most morning sun blocked by the hill we live at the bottom of) and, since we live in Seattle, we rely on natural humidity to keep the corks moist. During the winter the temperature stays between 55 and 60 degrees and we anticipate it won't get much above 70 during the summer. None of that is "optimal" but it's saving us a bunch of money, and, as you can guess from the video, I'm not too stressed out about my wine not aging in an "optimal" environment" as long as it remains in a "reasonable" environment. Frankly, at this point, I'm more worried about an earthquake (knock wood) than I am about the wine not aging well. Hope that's in some way helpful. Cheers!
What temperature should i keep my whites ?
For long term storage 55° F should work for both whites and reds. Cheers!