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Can I use a refrigerator as a wine cooler/cellar?
I have recently acquired some fairly pricey bottles of red and white wine. I realize now that I have no suitable place to store them. Our home averages about 80 degrees during the long hot summers. Can I store these lovely vintages in a refrigerator that is stored in the garage? The refrigerator works well, we just don't use this fridge currently. Can I manipulate the temps somehow? Trying to avoid buying an expensive wine cellar just yet. Thanks for any help.
When you say "store" I hear "long term" implied (particularly with the reds), so I would say not really. Get away with temporarily, perhaps.
A refrigerator is too dry. You need some humidity to keep from drying out the corks.
Also, unless you are using the refrigerator only for wine (and thus adjusting the temperature), the standard 40 degrees F for food is too low to store wine. It can slow or inhibit maturation, and can precipitate tartrate crystals (although the latter doesn't really hurt the wine).
Wine should be stored in a dark, quiet (free of vibration), 55 degree F, 60-70% humidity environment, with some air circulation. This enivronment should remain constant, not fluctuate.
For now ageworthy wines still are sealed with natural cork (bark off a live oak tree), and thus need to be laid on their sides at an angle sufficient to allow the wine to contact the cork (keeping the cork from drying out and allowing too much oxygen to enter the bottle and spoil the wine).
With a screwcapped bottle of wine, you don't have to worry about the cork drying out. However, as yet, scientists still do not fully understand all the processes that take place during the maturation (aging) of an ageable wine like a red Bordeaux. Cork is porous and does allow some oxygen to penetrate over the years, and it's not fully understood if this is necessary to the maturation of the wine (however, oxygen does bond with the tannins in red wine and precipitate out as sediment, but its the tannins that are acting as an anti-oxidant here as oxygen is generally the enemy of wine). So research is still ongoing with regard to the effects of screwcaps on ~ageworthy~ wines. As for wines that will be consumed sooner, screwcaps are preferable to corks (eliminating any possibility of "cork taint" spoilage of wine).
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If your home doesn't have the room for even a small dedicated wine storage area meeting the above requirements (a closet under stairs isn't recommended due to the vibrations), consider the following alternatives:
- if available in your area, rent a wine locker or simialr storage at a business that provides this
- if its for a special occasion, try to find a suitable aged wine at a restaurant (either way you will pay, whether someone else aged it for you or you invested in your own infrastructure)
- simply purchase wines not intended for aging, as there is much variety and quality available in this more readily consumable category of wine (plus it will be more economical)
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