«Should one store wine as dark as possible?»

Blick answers your wine questions

«Should one store wine as dark as possible?»

Blick wine editor Nicolas Greinacher regularly answers readers’ questions about wine. Josef Stadler is interested in the correct storage of wine.

Nicholas GreinacherEditor Wine

By far the largest part of the wines sold worldwide do not benefit from storage in the bottle and should be drunk within a few years of bottling if possible. However, there are wines that only really get going after decades of storage.

An important prerequisite for such a wine to develop optimally in the bottle are correct storage conditions. This includes, for example, a constant temperature between 10 and 15 degrees and humidity between 50 and 75 percent. Light also plays a central role in wine storage.

Wines like it dark

Sometimes I’m amazed when I walk past a wine shop where wines are exposed to the blazing sun in the window. Direct sunlight can cause the wine to heat up, causing it to age faster. Incidentally, certain types of artificial light can have the same effect.

The ultraviolet (UV) rays contained in the light can also be dangerous for the wine and cause it to age prematurely. For this reason, the majority of the wines are filled in colored glass that protects against UV light. Wines bottled in clear glass are exposed to an increased risk of UV light and therefore require greater protection.

It is therefore advisable to equip your own wine cellar with rather weak household bulbs. Incandescent bulbs work better than fluorescent bulbs because they emit lower levels of UV light. When leaving the wine cellar, the only thing left to think about is turning off the light.