Are you looking to buy wines to collect or trade? Ensure maximum return on your investment by storing your collection in a wine cabinet.

Why are storage conditions important for your wine collection? When you store your wine at room temperature or in an area where temperatures exceed 20°C, your wine will be affected within a couple of months.

Temperature fluctuations are terrible for your wine. The quicker they are, the more impact they will have. For instance, a fluctuation of 2-3 degrees over a few months is less problematic; however, 10 degrees on a daily basis will ruin even the most stable of wines. Indeed, as we move into the summer months, the heat combined with these excessive diurnal swings in temperature can be the end of your wine within weeks.

Wine cabinets are a good investment for anyone interested in drinking better wines, aged wines or high end bottles. Climate-controlled wine cellars ensure that your wines are always stored in the perfect conditions for maturation, and do not lose value or sensory appeal because of improper cellaring.

Being able to prove provenance and correct cellaring will be the main determining factors to maximise return on your investment, should you wish to sell your collection one day.

Environment stress visibly affects wine in the following ways:

• Heat literally ‘cooks’ your wine resulting in unpleasant, flabby ‘spoiled fruit’ flavours.
• Sunlight and UV light strip wine of its natural fruit flavours, resulting in a wine that’s dull, flat and lifeless.
• Imperceptible vibrations accelerate the ageing process and eventually deteriorate the body of your wines.
• Dry environments dry out corks and make them brittle, allowing air into the bottle, which oxidises the wine, creating off-odours and turning it brown (like apple slices when exposed to air).
• Lack of ventilation can cause mould to grow on the corks and labels.

If you have just begun your wine journey and are not yet ready for your first wine cabinet, here are a few suggestions to store your wines temporarily.

Don’t keep the bottles in the food fridge where they can pick up odours.

Don’t keep them above the fridge, where vibration and heat from the fridge will provide terrible conditions.

Instead, keep them lying down in boxes under your bed or in a closet with no wall to the outside. The wines have a greater chance of surviving though they will age much quicker, but it is a good back-up while you gear up for your first wine cabinet purchase.

So, in summary, a proper cellaring solution is a must in the long run. As much for resale value as it is for your own enjoyment, wine bottles need proper care and storage as they age.