Things To Keep In Mind When Storing Wine - Baumatic BW28 User Manual

Things to keep in mind about Wine before you put it
in your Baumatic Wine Cooler
Wine is a natural, perishable food product. Left exposed to
heat, light, vibrations, or fluctuations in temperature and humidity,
all wines (including sparkling wine, red wine and fortified wine) can
spoil. When properly stored, wines not only maintain their quality,
but many will actually improve in aroma, flavour and complexity as
they mature. Temperatures greater than 70 °F (21 °C ) will age a wine
prematurely and in extreme cases will 'cook' a wine, resulting in flat
aromas and flavours. A humidity of around 70% is ideal.
Bearing this in mind, you should know your wine's storage
history before storing it in your Wine Cooler. Ideally, you will have
either just bought it, or you will have kept it in a cool, dark place
with the bottle having rested on its side (except in the case of all
fortified wines, excluding port). Also make sure that your wine's old
storage area was not subjected to heavy or constant vibrations (eg.,
being next to a busy road) and strong smells, as these can impair the
flavour of all wines. If your old storage area was very dry, this may
present problems in that the wine may have leaked through a split
cork. Make sure that your old storage area had been cool but never
freezing.
Remember to make sure that you keep your Wine Cooler in a
place where it will not receive much sunlight. Ultraviolet light can
penetrate even the darkest bottles and spoil wine.
If you are going to be storing your wine in your Wine Cooler
rather than just cooling it, it's a good idea to keep in mind that the
ideal temperature for general wine storage is about 57 degrees
Fahrenheit (14 degrees Celsius), much like the cool caves used to
store wine in France.
Never forget that all wine is alive. Although thankfully rare,
there are several problems with any kind of wine storage that should
be understood before you get to placing bottles in your Wine Cooler
(see below & next page):
Corking – a tiny percentage (about 1%) of bottled wine will experience
this: essentially, the cork reacts with the wine and gives it a musty,
unpleasant taste. It is the most common wine fault and is caused by
harmless bacteria growing on the cork. As unfortunate as this is, there is
nothing to do but to discard all the wine in the affected bottle.
This is not to be confused with small fragments of cork floating in the wine
itself, which will not impair the flavour.
Your Baumatic BW28 Wine Cooler
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