Most of us don’t intend to drink all the wine we buy right away. We usually keep a few bottles for a rainy day, and that rainy day could be a bit far off. For that reason, here are a few hints on how to best store your wine so that it stays fresh up until you’re ready to pop the cork.

 

Wine is best kept in a cool dark place at a steady temperature usually between 10 and 15°C. Temperature fluctuations can alter the wine’s flavor. The worst place you can store your wine and unfortunately the most common place that people in fact do store it, is next to the stove or on top of the fridge, where warm air is constantly circulating. 

 

It’s also important to know that wine is a creature of the night! Wine is usually stored in dark colored bottles to keep out the light. Be sure to always store your wine somewhere dark, where sun and manmade light cannot reach it. And also know that strong odors like that of gasoline or paint can seep into the wine totally destroying the flavor. 

 

But the worst enemy of wine by far is oxygen, because it can seep into your wine bottle while it’s in storage and wreak havoc. That’s why if your wine has a cork, then you should always store it flat on its side, so that the inside of the cork is covered by the wine, preventing any air from seeping in. However, if your wine has a twist off cap, then it’s totally safe to store it standing up.