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How To Store Wines

For centuries now, wine has been the epitome of guest entertainment both for plush hotels and the better off homes as well. However, the challenge many restaurant and homeowners face has been how to store the aver so expensive wine till the next time it will be required. Since, while is easily affected by several environmental factors such as humidity, light, vibrations and many others, you need to be well informed on how to store your precious drink whether before or after it is opened.

Best Conditions

Before understanding the various ways you can store your wine, it is important that you get to know the ideal conditions required. The easiest way to spoil your white or red wine is to store it under the wrong conditions. Before selecting the perfect position for your bottle, consider the lighting, temperature and humidity of the place. Wine is better stored in a place with consistent temperatures, humidity and light intensity. Regular deviations in any one of these conditions will greatly reduced the life span of your drink. Here are some of the ways you can store your wine:

Cellars

These are the best places to store your wine, and are thus common in many hotels and pubs. For such wine collectors who have a cellar where they can store their wine, the process is much easier. But what about those who keep whines at their homes? Here is a look into how you can store wine even at home.

Racks

Another good practice when storing wine is to keep the bottles on a rack so that they can lie sideways. This way, the cork remains moist most of the time and air is thus kept out. In addition, sediments will be kept from settling at the bottom. When using racks, red wines should be closer to the top, whites in the middle and sparkling wine at the bottom.

Basements

Despite not being considered by many, the basement is one perfect place to store your wine bottles. This is because:

  • Basements will always remain cool even during the summer.
  • Unless you live in a place that experiences occasional earthquakes, you can be guaranteed minimum movement in the basement thus limited vibrations.
  • Basements remain dark most of the time so you need not be worried about changes in light intensity.
  • Wine lives longest when stored under 55-650 F and at 70-80% humidity, conditions well met in basements.

What About Opened Bottles?

In case you had already opened your wine bottle, always return the cork tightly into position. In case the remaining wine is less than half the bottle, pour the drink into a smaller bottle and replace its top. This is will ensure that minimum air accesses the wine surface. To make the wine last even longer, store the bottle in a refrigerator.

The trick with storing wine is just in striking a balance with the right conditions. With all the above methods in mind, the days when your expensive wine used to go bad should be long gone.

How to Open a Wine Bottle

There are many varieties of wines out there. You can drink champagne, indulge in a rare Burgundy or just have your way with some fresh made wine from Venice. Whatever your choice of wine, you can rest assured that learning how to open a wine bottle is as important as knowing the differences between different wines.

The amazing thing is that it is not that hard to learn how to open a wine bottle. You only need to follow the steps supplied here and you will be able to learn as much as you can about wines and how they are supposed to be opened. Using these instructions, you will learn how to open a wine bottle using wing, double action or corkscrew. It has 2 wings or arms that will help you to lever the wine bottle’s cork out. However, you should be careful to ensure that the cork does not get broken.

  • Remove your bottle’s top foil capsule or lead. This is done by cutting all round your bottle’s rim using the corkscrew’s sharp point. The screw’s arms will need to be raised as you perform this step. You can also opt to make a clean slit in your capsule foil before removing it together with the capsule.
  • Ensure the Bottle is Standing. This should be on a hard and flat surface at the mid chest level or even lower. Lower your cock screw’s arms. While holding your cock screw as straight and as vertically as possible, place carefully its sharp end into your cork’s middle.
  • Secure Grasping. Then grasp your bottle’s top securely and the cock screw’s lower end with a single hand.
  • Turning. Using your other hand, you can then start to turn your cock screw’s handle in a clock wise manner. Ensure you apply a constant and even pressure downwards into the wine bottle’s cork. As the cork screw goes right into your cork, the arms will start to rise. In case the cork screw does not penetrate into the cork as expected, you can apply a lot more pressure to achieve the effect you desire.
  • Continual Turning. You should also ensure that you keep the handle turning until the cork screw’s arms have been raised completely. This will ensure that the screw is well placed into the wine bottle’s cork.
  • Pressing. Place a single hand on both arms of your cork screw before pressing down the arms. This will help to lift the bottle’s cork out. Wrap the other hand around the cork screw’s base before lifting it up in straight manner. If it is necessary, you can remove the cork’s foil. Then twist of the cork from the cork screw.

To come to a suitable conclusion, learning how to open a wine bottle is not as hard as it seems. You only need to be very careful to ensure that the cork does not break up otherwise you will have a hard time if the cork gets into your rare wine.

Facts about Wine

Wine is a renowned alcoholic drink that is manufactured through the use of fermented fruit juice that mostly comes from grapes. The fermentations comes about from the natural chemical balance that the grapes have which makes it not necessary to add sugars, enzymes, acids and other nutrients as well to it.

Categories

In most cases, you will discover that wines are classified depending on the grapes that are used for their manufacturer. Others are classified depending on their origin or from where they are grown. While this is the case, the classification is mostly determined by the regulations of many states of the world. For instance, you will discover that wines that originate from the European countries are mostly classified according to region while those wines that are non-European are simply classified by grape. In other countries, you will note that the classifications are based mostly on a dual system of the region of origin as well as the product quality.

Tasting

After wine has been produced, it has to undergo through some tasting as a way of evaluation. Since wines are composes of chemical compounds that have a close similarity to spices, fruits and even vegetables, the sweetness has to be determines first by tasting the amount of residual sugar contained in the wine shortly after fermentation. For instance, if the wine happens to have a small amount of residual sugar, it simply means that the wine is dry. The aroma of the wine is achieved from impulsive compounds present in the wine that are discharged in the air. To achieve vaporization of these compounds, the wine can be served at room temperature.

Uses

Wine has become one of the most popular beverages across the globe ranging from the simple and traditional to the most complex and at the same time sophisticated beverage. In most cases wine is used as a cuisine in most occasions especially parties. The best thing about wine is that it has a low content of alcohol which means if served amicably; it is rare for a person to get drank. In other cases, wine has been used as medicine to heal wounds. If one has a wound and a small amount of wine is poured on it, it dries of quickly. Wine is used religiously as a sacramental.

Effects

Wine contains sulphites and this can cause adverse effects especially to those asthmatic people. In addition, if wine is taken excessively, it can damage the hippocampus to a very high degree.

Casing

Mostly, wines are packed and sold in glass bottles that are sealed tightly using corks. While this is the case, there are other manufacturers who pack the same wines in heavy plastic bags that are protected with cardboard boxes. The difference between these tow packing is that, the wine stored in the glass bottles tends to oxidize first as compared to the wine packaged in the heavy plastic bags.

Conclusion

It is highly advisable to store the wine in optimal temperatures. This is simply means that it is imperative not to store wine in lower humidity levels as this can easily dry the corks within the shortest period of time which in return allows the entry of oxygen that reduces the quality of the wine.