Storing my first bottles...?

[Paulc]

Feel free to file this question under "the only dumb question is the one not asked!"

I just bottled this weekend my first wine in probably 10 yrs. A RJS super tuscan. I am super excited about it but have very limited space for storage and questionable patience to let this stuff age correctly. While grocery shopping today I gave some serious thought to digging a hole in the backyard and burying my wine for 12months! I was thinking doubled garbage bag in a tupperware tote...maybe then put the tote in some more garbage bags...I was unsure of how the lack of air flow would effect the aging. I live on the coast of GA, east of S'nah so I have LOTS of sand and not much else. I figure 3 feet down would be pretty stable, cool temps.

I thought I would keep out 4-6 bottles that I could open over the next 12-18 months to see how things are going and dig up my stash based on what I taste. Is this a bad idea, or just crazy?

Any suggestions on how to do it better that does not involve excavating a proper wine cellar in the back yard? Thanks, Paul

 

[Runningwolf]

Well Paul if you were my neighbor I would tell you the importance of burying very shallow and close to the property line (how do you say wine thief)! I really believe the best thing for you to do is place the bottles in a wine case upside down, tape them shut and store them away.

 

[djrockinsteve]

To each his own. I'd wrap it in a plastic bag too. Didn't mention if you used artificial corks or real cork as real cork breaths.

Neighbors may think you are burying someone.

 

[Redtrk]

To each his own. I'd wrap it in a plastic bag too. Didn't mention if you used artificial corks or real cork as real cork breaths.

Neighbors may think you are burying someone.

That's what I was thinking. Hey Paulc the Savannah PD wants to talk to you!

 

[Minnesotamaker]

If you bury it, make sure you draw up a "treasure map" and put it with your important papers. Otherwise, if you get hit by a bus, your family will have to dig up the entire back yard looking for the treasure. Of if they don't know about it, some excavation crew will come across it 50 years from now and your wine will be in the news.

 

[Randoneur]

you're thinking too small. make the hole really big and finish it into a wine cellar

 

[JohnT]

If money is not an issue, I would recommend that you do not burry your wine in the ground and (instead) purchase a wine storage unit.

Think about it this way... Cork is nothing more than the bark off of a tree. If you burry a piece of bark (or wood), how long would you expect it to be sound.

I see that you are from the "warm and friendly" part of the country. Since the climate is warmer, then I would imagine that the soil is also more active with things that just LOVE to chew on some wood.

Another thought to consider: If burring wine in the ground is such a hot idea, then why do only a few people do it?

 

[winemaker_3352]

Another thought - search on craigslist for an old decent size chest freezer and purchase a refrigerator thermostat. This way you can convert your freezer into a wine storage unit - you can keep the temp around 55 this way.

I did this for less than $100 bucks.

 

[AJ-123]

I've been noodling and researching this problem for awhile (I've been making wine for about a year). I've looked at converting the under stairs space into a wine closet; looked at all the vinotemp, eurocave, avanti stand alone units for garage; looked at getting a spare refrigerator; even looked at building a cellar/tornado shelter with a cooler; etc.

After examining about every conceivable option, I've decided to get a large upright freezer for the garage (a very big one can be had for $500-$850 new or much less if you can find a used one on Craig's List), then put a simple $60 thermometer system in (search Johnson controls on Amazon). Pretty simple way to get a one temperature starage facility. One of the major advantages is that my garage gets over 100 in the summer and even a more expensive wine storage unit will not handle it, while a freezer has got ample compresser capacity to keep wine at 55-60 when temp is 105.

 

[AJ-123]

Also, people are stressing about the humidity in a refrigerator or home cooling room type of storage. My impression is that this only important if you are storing bottles with NATURAL corks for more than a year or two. Most corks are not 100% natural anymore anyway (e.g. crushed, mixed with composition material, or all composition material). I put screwtop on my bottles anyway as are more and more winemakers -- so most wine bottles have an innert closure (the way it should be). So humidity is not such a big deal. And for those few bottles from your bordeaux estate in France, just put a wet cloth over the top and wet it a few times a year. I believe that the notion that there is some optimum tiny amount of oxygen which passes through natural cork over years has largely been debunked by serious scientific tests.

Bottom line, don't worry so much about humidity that you decide to pay extra thousands for some storage unit.

Let me know if I'm wrong in this!

 

[jswordy]

Well, all mine is in Rubbermaid totes (cost: $12 each new at Wal-Mart; holds about 40 bottles or so) in my crawlspace until I need some. Then it comes out to a wine fridge. It is so much of a PITA to dig through those tote bottles to get what I want, that fact does act as a deterrent until I really, really need to get down there and pull out 12-16 or so bottles for future use.

This has actually allowed me to keep some wines past 6 months without drinking any. That's a major advance in technology around my place.



Might be patentable, I dunno.

 

[cindy]

I bought a real nice wine cooler that holds 50 bottles off craigslist for 100.00 maybe you can check there.