Keeping Your Wine in the Optimum Conditions

    Wine typically is said to boast of a fruity, nutty or zesty flavor, but in my world wine simply boasts of beauty - both in and out of the bottle. But like many beautiful things, wine is best classified as high-maintenance, which shouldn't be shocking. After all, in the alcohol world - and the beverage world for that matter - wine is a diva. It can't stand to be put in the average refrigerator. Instead, wine demands to be placed in the optimum conditions to stay at its peak performance, and if you fail to comply, it quickly turns bitter.
    To fully understand wine's character, I visited Wine Cellar Innovations in Cincinnati, Ohio to speak with the company's Vice President of Operations, Tony Wilke, and the Sales Director, Jack Diener.
    While it's easy to dismiss wine's diva-like qualities as an old wives tail, both Wilke and Diener warned against it. If wine is not stored at the optimum temperature and humidity level, it can turn into vinegar, and the threat of that bitter flavor is enough to convince even the faintest of wine lovers to pay closer attention to how they treat their wines.  
    "Long term storage of wine requires, a. consistent temperature and b. a high humidity level," Wilke said.
    The temperatures and humidity levels best for wine were derived from its first storage place: underground caves in Europe. While it may seem unglamorous, all wine cellars, cabinets and refrigerators are set at a temperature and humidity level meant to mimic the conditions found in those first storage spots for wine that proved to age it to perfection.
    "The underground caves is the temperature you are trying to replicate," Wilke said. "So what we're looking for is 55 degrees actually between 55 and 58 and then your relative humidity between 55 and 75 percent."
    Placing your wine in those conditions will keep it at its peak, because that temperature and humidity allows the wine to age at the perfect rate.
    "As it ages, [wine] needs to be able to breathe through [its] cork," Wilke said.
    During that aging process, wine is shoved out of the cork as oxygen is pushed in. The oxygen allows the wine to age, but if the wine experiences excessive oxidation, it turns bitter. Extreme changes in temperature and humidity are the reasons wine turns bitter. Temperatures above 55-58 degrees cause oxygen to pass through the cork at a quicker pace, which means the higher the temperature the faster wine turns sour. The opposite goes for humidity. The lower the humidity, the more oxygen that enters the wine bottle. As a result, it is important to store your wine at 55 to 58 degrees with a relative humidity level of 55 to 75 percent.
    But how important is it really? Is it okay to leave your wine out at room temperature for a few days or weeks?
    "For all practical purposes, if you're going to consume it in three to five years, not many wines are going to go bad in one's home, unless it's kept in your trunk or above a refrigerator," Diener said.
    That's good news for those who enjoy wine every now and then. But don't get too excited. Quickly chilling your wine in the refrigerator or keeping it there until you've finished it off may not be the best idea.
    "Putting [wine] in your refrigerator, it's subject to everything in your refrigerator that smells," Diener said. "The cork of a wine is a natural substance, so things pass in and out of it. So if there's a piece of salmon or an onion in your refrigerator, eventually your wine is going to take on the smells or tastes of salmon or onion."
In the end, your best choice may be to give into wine's diva demands. With wine, if you want to enjoy each glass to the last drop, you've got to treat it right. And when you taste it at it's prime, suddenly those demands don't seem quite so unreasonable.