Red & White Wine – Proper Storage and Serving Temperature

Knowing how to properly store your wine can make a huge difference in the taste and how long your wine last's for. There’s nothing worse than opening a bottle of wine that has been stored incorrectly only to find out that the taste has changed for the worse. 

You want to make sure that your wine is properly stored for the long term, and the short term, so that you preserve the flavours and get the full quality out of your bottle. It’s important to know which types of wines should be served at what temperature. This will also help produce the best flavours possible.

When it comes to long-term storage, red and white wines can be stored in similar fashion, but for short term storage, meaning you intend to drink the wine within a few days/weeks, there are different ways to store each type of wine, and different temperatures you should keep the bottles at in order to maintain their flavours.

Let’s take a look at how to properly store your wine for different situations, and at what temperatures you should be serving your wine at so you get the most out of that bottle.

Properly Storing Red & White Wine

If you are the type of person that likes to buy multiple bottles of wine at a time, or like to always make sure you have a bottle to hand for any occasion, then you’re most likely going to be storing some bottles for longer periods of time.

In the case of long-term wine storage, there are some things you’ll want to make sure you do to keep your wine from going bad.

And yes, wine can go bad over time if improperly stored.

Unlike serving temperature, which we’ll discuss further down, there is no difference in the long-term storage of red vs white wine. All of your wine can be stored in the same way as long as you adhere to the following rules.

1. You want to make sure that your wine is stored in a cool, dark, location. A wine cellar or a basement are perfect places to store your wine. If you don’t have either of those, a wine cooler or aging cabinet with a door that shields your  bottles from direct light, is also a great option.

Light can cause damage to your wine causing it to lose it's precious flavours ruining the main reason why we like to drink wine. By keeping it away from sunlight, you can ensure that your wine will be protected.

Temperature wise, you want to make sure that your wine is stored somewhere where the temperature remains between 7-18 °C. You also want to make sure that the humidity level is around 70%. The humidity will help prevent the cork from drying out, which leads us to our next tip.

2. You always want to store your wine on a very slight angle with the cork side down. Obviously, this won’t matter as much if you’re bottle of wine is a screw top, but you want to do whatever you can to prevent the cork from drying out.

If the cork on your bottle starts to dry out and crack, it could lead to oxygen entering the bottle causing oxidation. Oxidation is the enemy of wine and can significantly change the flavour and the quality of your wines. This is the same reason why a bottle of wine doesn’t taste nearly as good a few days later than when it did when it was first opened.

You want to do your best to prevent the cork from drying out and by storing your bottles on a slight angle this will keep the wine up against the cork, keeping it moist.

3. Finally, you want to avoid a location that has a lot of vibration. If you plan on storing your wine for a long period of time, we suggest to store it in a wine cooler or a wine aging cabinet, this will provide your wine with the best storage conditions. When handling your bottles of wine try your best not to agitate the bottles as this could effect the overall flavour and quality of the wine. So if you’re really looking to preserve that special bottle, just set it and forget it.

What Temperature Should I Serve Wine at?

Most people will argue that, in general, white wine is supposed to be served chilled and red wine is supposed to be served at around room temperature, but that’s not always the case according to wine experts.

Red Wine Serving Temperature:

This notion that red wine is supposed to be served at “room temperature” has been floating around for ages. And because this idea has been around for so long, the ideal “room temperature” has changed over the years.

While today our “room temperature” usually hovers around 20-22 °C. Most red wine is meant to be served between 12°C - 18°C to help maintain the intended flavour of the wine. If you’re wine is too warm the alcohol taste can push through making it sting a bit when drank, while too cold and the tannins in the wine can shine through too much.

The temperature in which red wine should be served can be subjective depending on your personal tastes, but in general 12°C - 18°C is the sweet spot for red wine. This will allow the wines flavour's to balance nicely without throwing off the taste.

White Wine Serving Temperature:

Opposite of red wine, most people will tell you that white wine needs to be served chilled rather than at room temperature. And while this is true, there is also a sweet spot in terms of the best temperature for white wines.

Serving white wines between 7°C - 10°C will give you the best flavour possible for these types of wines. This is why it’s also important not to store your white wines in your traditional refrigerator. We recommend storing your wines in a wine cooler with an adjustable temperature control display. This will allow your wine to sit within a temperature controlled climate for optimum storage conditions.

 

The exception of a wine cooler is specifically designed to keep your wines at a certain temperature. You can set your wine cooler to hold at around 7°C and it will keep your white wine cool up until you serve it.

If your white wine gets too cold it can cause it to lose some of its flavour, while serving white wine warm will cause it to become dull.

Wine flavour ultimately comes down to personal preference though. If you prefer your red wine served at a modern day room temperature, then by all means go for it. And if you like your white wine as cold as you can possibly get it, more power to you. But if you’re looking to get the most our of your wines quality, then it’s important to serve your wine at the right temperature.

Do what makes you happy, but if you think your wine tastes different than usual, or maybe that bottle of wine you bought after having a glass at a nice restaurant isn’t how you remember, play around with the serving temperature. You’d be surprised at how a few degrees can change the flavour of your wine.