Cabinet Solutions for Preserving Wine

Specialized storage cabinets offer a unique method for preserving those special vintages. Simply put, you no longer have to buy big, bulk independent storage units.

An investment in a wine collection is no small thing. Individual bottles of wine can cost thousands of dollars. If you have a large collection, you may have spent tens of thousands of dollars stocking your favorite varieties and vintages. With an investment like wine, the worth of your collection has the potential to keep growing ? but only if you store your wine in a proper way. Wine cabinets are an excellent way to make sure that your wine collection matures correctly.

There are several factors that you should look at when choosing among the many wine cabinets available. Most homeowners and wine enthusiasts today don't have the ability to create their own wine cellar in a basement or other cool, moist place ? but this is the ideal environment for aging wine, known as crianza. To that end, wine owners should look for cabinets that replicate this type of environment as closely as possible.

A good wine cabinet will allow you to store your wines at an ideal temperature, which is between 59 and 61 degrees F. If your wine is kept too chilled or too warm, it will not age and mature properly. Good wine cabinets will also allow you to have a controlled amount of moisture in the air ? an optimum amount of moisture allows the wine to mature, and this amount has been calculated to be about 70 percent humidity.

Some wine cabinets allow for the first two conditions to be met without issue ? most wine cabinet manufacturers install thermostats as well as humidity controls so that you can make sure your wine is getting the right atmosphere. These aren't the only considerations, however, that you should make when choosing a cabinet. It's also a good idea to choose a wine storage system that allows your bottles to stay stable with little to no vibration to disturb the sediment in the wine. The natural way that wine ages is usually in a still place, and the vibrations from compressors found in some cabinets can disturb the wine.

Choosing the right storage method for your wine investment is nearly as important as choosing the correct vintages to purchase. Wine that is aging is considered by some to be a living thing, and because of this, it needs the utmost care.