Are wine drinkers all optimistic gamblers?
Recently, it has been rainy across the country. Hunan was hit by heavy rainfall, with 540 townships experiencing torrential rain and 122 townships experiencing severe torrential rain. In Shanghai during the plum rain season, not only must you guard against rain falling at any time, but you also have to endure the torment of damp, muggy heat. They say mushrooms have even grown on buses... Only those living in Shanghai can understand this sour sensation. At times like this, what I worry about most is the wine I have collected at home. After all, I have collected quite a lot of wine over these past few years, and in this kind of weather, preserving wine becomes a very big problem.
Regarding wine storage, we must first ask: why store wine? The answer is actually very simple: don't let it spoil, and allow it to undergo aging transformation. That's all!The first condition must be met before the latter transformation can be expected to occur.
Don't let it spoil, of course this is not about people. However, if you buy and drink too much without restraint, it is hard to avoid losing control. Wine can disorder the nature, and when nature is disordered, all kinds of messy things can happen. What does it mean for wine not to spoil? Natural aging is not called spoiling, whether for people or wine. The wisdom accumulated over the years, the gradual accumulation of time, will produce traces of breadth and depth in the brain or in the wine bottle. Only those who have endured countless hardships can see through the disturbances of worldly affairs; only wine that has aged in the cellar for a long time can present a perfectly integrated result. Time is forever an unconquerable factor. We have no way to speed it up, nor can we block its forward momentum.
Wine stored in abnormal conditions spoils in a way that is actually very obvious.
Compared with high-alcohol distilled spirits, low-alcohol fermented wine, because of its low alcohol concentration and relatively abundant nutrients, has a more delicate constitution and is more prone to spoiling. Under conditions of oxygen, low alcohol content and suitable temperature: miscellaneous bacteria in the air, especially acetic acid bacteria, will begin to multiply in large numbers, and the low-alcohol wine body is the best nutrient for acetic acid bacteria. Acetic acid bacteria promote the oxidation of alcohol (ethanol) into acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is a colorless but pungent-smelling liquid that destroys the wine's original aroma (the original fruity aroma or the wine's mature aroma and other aromatic ester molecules). If more time passes, acetaldehyde will slowly oxidize into acetic acid. Acetic acid has an even sharper, more pungent smell and acidity, and will cause the wine body that has already lost its aroma to slowly disintegrate.
As for the problem of discoloration, if it is normally aged wine, the change in color (red wine turning brown and lighter, white wine turning deep yellow or brownish yellow) is inevitable, and this is related to the transformation of the original pigments in the wine. If a new bottle of wine has already begun to change color, then there may already be a problem. Perhaps oxygen has gotten into the bottle (accelerating oxidation), or the wine has been exposed to light, such as sunlight or long-term indoor lighting, causing excessive ultraviolet rays to stimulate the pigments or the original chemical activity inside the bottle.
No matter which cause leads to abnormal souring or discoloration of the wine, it is a great pity, because spoilage is an irreversible reaction. No matter what the original price was, spoiled wine already has no value or meaning. Under conditions where wine has sufficient oxygen, the ways it spoils are none other than: temperature, light, vibration and humidity.
1, Temperature
Temperature divides into two situations: temperature difference and high temperature
Temperature differenceIf the temperature difference is not too severe, basically the impact on wine will not be very great, unless such a change occurs within a very short time. However, how great a temperature difference or how long a time will cause changes in wine has no definitive conclusion. Each kind of wine (red, white, sparkling, sweet, grape variety, winemaking method, etc.) has a different situation, and the tolerance limits are also different. It is very difficult to establish a general rule, and one can only judge based on personal experience. In environments with severe temperature changes, even people easily feel discomfort, and wine has no ability to self-regulate. When storing or carrying it, it is best to avoid situations where excessive temperature differences occur within a short time. In addition, severe temperature changes will affect traditional wine bottles sealed with cork. Abnormal expansion and contraction of the air inside the bottle can easily cause the bottle to push out, allowing air, miscellaneous bacteria and even excessive moisture to enter, causing deterioration.
High temperatureHigh temperature is the truly biggest killer that delivers a fatal blow to wine. Simply put, high temperature generates heat, and heat accelerates the reactions of the chemical substances in the wine and causes the aromatic esters in it to disappear. Once the wine body has deteriorated and lost its aroma (this is an irreversible reaction), even if it is placed back into a temperature-controlled wine cabinet, it cannot come back. In particular, because temperature differences cause the cork to bulge, allowing air and miscellaneous bacteria to enter the bottle, the wine body may acidify, and in that case the bottle of wine is completely ruined.
Temperature control is the most important key when storing wine!
In this hot summer, if the wine is merely placed in an ordinary room, the indoor temperature during the day is still very likely to exceed 30 degrees. If the air conditioner is turned on at night to cool it down, the day-night temperature difference and the excessively high daytime temperature will affect the wine. The fresh fruity aroma slowly disappears and turns into a warm, stewed-fruit taste.
As for low temperature, its impact on wine is relatively small. The most likely situation is that it slows down the wine's transformation. If under unavoidable circumstances the wine is kept in a refrigerator (usually 4 to 5 degrees), although this can prevent the wine from spoiling, it is not very good for long-term storage. This kind of temperature is not a good environment for allowing wine to develop. However, the impact of low temperature on the wine body is much smaller than that of high temperature. Unless it is almost freezing, wine stored at low temperature can basically still maintain its quality. In short, high temperature is the absolute killer of wine.
2, Light
It is related to temperature; overly strong light will cause temperature to rise. Very simply, just recall standing on the playground in the scorching summer as a child, that memory of being drenched in sweat, and you can understand. However, besides the rise in temperature, the greatest impact of light on wine is exposure to ultraviolet rays, whether outdoors (sunlight) or indoors (certain fluorescent tubes that emit ultraviolet rays),after long-term exposure, it will likewise cause damage to the wine's quality.
Overly strong or prolonged light, through radiation, accelerates the movement of various molecules in the wine. The result may cause normal acidity to disappear, may advance the internal transformation of the wine body, may generate heat through energy transfer and cause aroma molecules to be lost, and may also affect the expansion of the air inside the bottle, producing leakage and allowing oxygen and miscellaneous bacteria to run into the bottle, forming souring and excessive oxidation.
There are preventive methods for wine against the effects of light. Wineries usually use brown or green bottles to hold wine, and during transport reduce exposure to excessive light. For consumers, placing wine in cardboard boxes, or wrapping the bottle in paper, or more proactively storing it in a wine cabinet, and sticking opaque paper on the glass door of the wine cabinet, and so on, are all very good methods.
3, Vibration
For both veteran and beginner wine lovers, there are usually no more than four ways to store wine: domestic compressor-type wine cabinets (cheap), foreign refrigerant circulation-type wine cabinets (no compressor, very expensive), renting a spot at a large wine merchant to store wine (paying monthly rent), or building a temperature- and humidity-controlled wine cellar at home (usually at the level of big bosses). No matter which method, it is all for the purpose of having aso-called standard environment of constant temperature, constant humidity, no light and no vibration in which to place one's good wine.
Usually more people buy domestic compressor-type wine cabinets because they are relatively cheap. But some veteran wine lovers believe that the vibration of the compressor will affect the development of the wine, and that it is not a very good choice for storing wine. In fact, extremely tiny vibrations, as long as they do not cause the wine body to become cloudy or even form cavitation (that is, the temporary bubble vacuum phenomenon inside a liquid caused by very large shaking), usually do not have much impact on wine, or rather this impact basically does not really exist. Small vibrations will not cause strong chemical changes in the wine's quality, and as for the transformation of wine during storage, there is also not enough experimental evidence to prove that they produce a decisive impact.