Reassurance for the paranoid

[DRT]

There are times when I have read things here and in the other place where people are slightly or intensely paranoid about the effects of bad storage. I find it particularly interesting when I read people being concerned about very short-term fluctuations in storage temperature/conditions and the expectation that it might be detrimental to the wine.

I have conducted an unintentional experiment in bad storage that I find quite interesting, and hope that others might too.

About four months ago I took delivery of 12 bottles of dry red from a well known UK internet-based wine merchant. The case contained four bottles of 2008 claret that I did not particularly want (because they were younger than I had asked for) so I asked for them to be swapped for something older. The bottles in the case were in the £15-£20 per bottle price range.

I was asked to leave the four bottles in a cardboard box in my back garden to be collected within two or three days and replaced with something else. the exchange never happened. The box never moved for four months and has gone through mild frost to very near summer temperatures with a great deal of daily, weekly and monthly fluctuation.

Today I decided to give up all hope that the exchange would happen and brought the four bottles back inside. I opened one two hours ago. It is delicious. It looks and tastes like a 2008 claret that costs £15-£20.

I can see how long term bad storage is likely to damage wine, but this unintended experiment tells me that moderate fluctuations in temperature over a relatively short space of time have virtually no effect whatsoever.

[LGTrotter]

I too am a advert for the paranoid. On Daniels thread are some remarks I have made about my storage which I have been using for about 20 years now and it is very far from ideal. The port seems fine. Indeed I sometimes think that it shows better than wines I have bought in from professional storage.

Not quite sure I would go so far as Derek and keep it in the garden though.

[DRT]

I am thinking of standing my Boa Vista 1972s in the rockery like Portuguese Gnomes and leaving them out for a few winters to see if they improve.

[LGTrotter]

Or hang them in the trees as a sort of port piñata.

[DRT]

Or hang them in the trees as a sort of port piñata.

Taking that a step further: Offley wind-chimes - that's a brilliant idea! I could sell them on Ebay for a fortune.

[PopulusTremula]

Fully agree w DRT, with one exception - severe heat. I would be wary about leaving wines I care about in a car for a week's roadtrip in Spain but I have also read numerous reports of people finding bottles in their cars after years of bouncing about and getting baked without any adverse effects found.

I keep some wines in Sweden, nothing fancy and a long story, where they sit in a cupboard at a rather constant 21 degrees C. I recently drank an entry level Chablis which, because of age and storage history ought to have been dead, only to find a really nice mature wine, short in the aftertaste and a plain but not in any way damaged or over the hill. In most cases I think the paranoia is just that but the type of wine may also be significant.

Magnus

[LGTrotter]

This looks like it might be a case of the thread which died of agreement.

Where are the paranoid? BTW it doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

[DRT]

this unintended experiment tells me that moderate fluctuations in temperature over a relatively short space of time have virtually no effect whatsoever.

Fully agree w DRT, with one exception - severe heat.

I think I carefully excluded that scenario already

Where are the paranoid?

Mostly west of here, but not all of them.

[Alex Bridgeman]

So when can we expect to see all of your wine storage cabinets on ebay?

[DRT]

So when can we expect to see all of your wine storage cabinets on ebay?

Tomorrow.

[idj123]

My current such experiment consists of leaving nine bottles of W77 under a sheet in my car because I haven't gotten around to fessing up to my wife that I've bought more Port! They've been in there for a month-reckon I need to hold out for a year so should experience all four seasons. Will confirm results!