We’ve all heard of Italian wine collectors who have entire cellars dedicated to their passion. These cellars are carefully constructed to ensure the wine is stored in the perfect conditions, allowing the drinker to experience the wine as it is intended to be experienced.
At least, that is the theory.
Reading something like this may make you feel like you need to have a cellar to properly enjoy your Italian wine. Of course, this isn’t exactly possible for most people as building a wine cellar requires a lot of room and…well…the presence of a cellar in your home.
Knowing this, you may feel like you’re not getting the best out of your wine because you don’t have a cellar.
But that isn’t necessarily the case.
Here, we answer the questions of whether you need an Italian wine cellar and how you can store your wines properly, cellar or not, to ensure you get the best out of them.
Let’s start with the burning question…
Do You Need an Italian Wine Cellar?
The answer is that it really depends on your relationship with Italian wine.
If you’re the sort of person who buys a few bottles to enjoy at home or with friends every now and again, it’s likely that you don’t need a cellar. This is especially the case if you don’t expect to store those wines for an extended period of time before you drink them.
For such people, which really accounts for the vast majority of the wine-drinking public, building a wine cellar is an unnecessary expense that will take up enormous amounts of room for very little return.
However, the answer changes if you’re interested in the world of Italian wine collecting.
Obviously, collecting wines means that you will have a lot of them in your home, meaning you need somewhere to store them. Collectors also take pride in keeping their wines in good condition, both because doing so makes the collection look better and because caring for the wine ensures it maintains its value.
So, if you fall into that camp, an Italian wine cellar may be a suitable investment. Again, this requires you to have space to build a cellar in the first place.
Finally, you have the camp of companies and groups for which having cellars is a requirement. For example, most producers will maintain cellars, either to store bulk quantities of wines before they’re shipped or to maintain a tourist attraction in which they can store the best examples of their wines. Some restaurants, hotels, and similar establishments may also maintain cellars, especially if the quality of their wines is a key selling point for patrons.
But for the average Italian wine consumer, building an entire cellar is not a requirement to get the best out of their wines.
How to Store Your Wines Properly
Just because you don’t necessarily need a cellar, that does not mean that you can’t take steps to emulate how your Italian wine would be stored were it in a cellar. The entire purpose of cellars is to ensure that wines maintain their qualities for longer periods, meaning they provide plenty of inspiration about the correct way to store our bottles.
The following are some key tips to follow, whether you have a wine cellar or not.
Tip #1 – Temperature is Key
Getting the temperature wrong is one of the quickest ways to destroy an Italian wine’s quality.
As a general rule, a temperature of about 55 degrees Fahrenheit (About 12-13 degrees Celsius) is considered the ideal temperature for storing bottles of red or white wine. This is just below room temperature, meaning the wine stays cool, but not so cool that the wine is damaged.
However, some prefer to keep their white wines at a cooler temperature, storing them inside a fridge as a result. While this is fine, and will lead to the wine having a more refreshing taste once opened, it will also lead to the wine degrading faster. The best way to store Italian wine is to keep it at the temperature mentioned above before putting it on ice for a little while just prior to serving.
Tip #2 – Storing the Bottle
The best way to store a bottle of wine is to place it on its side. This allows the wine to make contact with the cork, which prevents the cork from drying out and potentially spoiling the wine. It’s for this reason that you will see some wine cellars designed in such a way as to lean the bottle forward slightly, allowing the wine to make greater contact with the cork.
However, this storage method can also lead to sediment building up near the top of the bottle.
Tip #3 – Maintain Stable Conditions
One of the biggest advantages of wine cellars is that they allow producers to maintain stable conditions for their wines. There isn’t a whole lot of variance in terms of temperature or light penetration, which means the wine is kept in the perfect conditions.
This is often difficult when storing wine elsewhere in your home. For example, leaving a bottle near a window could expose it to natural sunlight, which ruins the quality of the wine over extended periods. There may also be variances in temperature that do a number of the wine’s chemical composition.
So, consistency is key when storing.
Maintaining a cupboard that is maintained in the correct conditions may be the best solution for those who can’t build a wine cellar.
The Final Word
It’s not possible to perfectly replicate the conditions found in a wine cellar in your home without actually building a wine cellar. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not possible to store your Italian wines in a way that allows them to maintain their qualities for longer.
The tips we’ve offered above should help you if you’re not in a position to build an Italian wine cellar. And of course, you’ll find plenty of examples of amazing Italian wines to enjoy if you spend a little time on the Xtrawine website.
I’m a passionate about good wine and good cooking.
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