For The Love Of Port

My wife and I live in the Southeastern United states and aren't 100% sure our crawlspace stays within the temperature/humidity requirements for laying down port so we were thinking of getting one of these (or something like it)

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Danby---36- ... Id=6767123

Anyone have any alternatives they'd recommend?

Any recommendations for tongs? Are tongs needed for LBVs (we don't have any LBVs ordered yet, but I'm thinking about getting some soon and we do have 18 bottles of VP coming)?

The vertical Port tongs are best, although I've not seen them for sale in the states.
I guess you could use them for an aged LBV. Usually they're for wines in bottle for a long time where the cork may be deteriorated.

Hey Adam,

That cooler looks fine, though I'd caution you on a couple things. First off, unless you plan on buying a high end, large cooler, I've yet to see a good reason to buy new. Craigslist has provided me with 4 solid coolers for the price I spent on my 1 cooler I bought new. The only one that's broken has been the one I bought new (though it survived some serious abuse before it gave out, so that's a bit misleading).

The other downside to buying new is that budget coolers don't last more than 5-10 years (or so I'm told, I've only had mine 2-4 years). That means you could be shelling out 200-300 bucks every few years, to replace it. Warranty usually doesn't last more than 1-2 years.

One thing to consider about coolers in general is they aren't good at staying humid. While this probably isn't an issue for wines you're leaving in there for less than 5 or even 10 years, I wouldn't try to age VPs 30 years in one.

As for LBVs, while they can age quite nicely, they usually don't need to to be enjoyed. This means they'd be perfect for your cooler, as would VPs that are ready or close to ready to drink.

While I don't own tongs, I've never felt I needed them to open a bottle. They are most helpful when you're trying to avoid pulling a cork that will likely be difficult (such as is often the case with 40+ year old wine) or when you're trying to show some flair. A corkscrew and some cheesecloth or metal filter are totally fine for dealing with difficult corks, they are just less elegant. Plenty of folks here have good pairs of tongs though, and they are fun to see used, so don't let not needing them prevent you from getting some!

Finally, even though you're in a cooler area of Alabama, I doubt that unless you have a DEEP basement, you have someplace where wine would be safe for extended periods of time. It just takes one good heat spike, or extended time above 70-75, to abuse your wine and cork. Some sort of artificially cooled spot is almost certainly a must, so bravo for taking action!

Eric Ifune wrote:The vertical Port tongs are best, although I've not seen them for sale in the states.
I guess you could use them for an aged LBV. Usually they're for wines in bottle for a long time where the cork may be deteriorated.

I prefer the horizontal tongs, so go figure. Not sure where to buy them, but they are not "necessary" for port. They can be used on any port bottle with a driven cork.

The fridge you link to seems to be marketed as a "wine cooler" as opposed to a long-term wine storage unit. In the UK at least, my experience is that this is likely to mean it runs off a regular fridge compressor and therefore have more vibration than is ideal (though i don't know how much difference vibration actually makes to long term storage...)

Worth also doing a bit of googling as well on the band to see how this compares to eg: CostCo wine fridges that i know some other people use - for instance this thread from wine beserkers suggests there may be reason to be a bit wary of this make link

I have a Sub-Zero kitchen under-counter wine cooler which is front-vented, but it is too small for storing any serious quantity of wine. We use it for wines which we want to have handy for drinking with meals. It is compressor-cooled, so there might be vibration issues, although I can't feel any serious vibration. For long-term storage (including Ports), I have a room which is temperature and humidity controlled (with a remote chiller).

I have both kinds of tongs, but have never used either of them. (I can get out most corks with my array of removal tools, and generally decant old VPs anyway.)

Adam LeCroy wrote:My wife and I live in the Southeastern United states and aren't 100% sure our crawlspace stays within the temperature/humidity requirements for laying down port

I'm 99% certain that your crawl space is inadequate. Temps in a crawl space aren't that much different than outside, so you're hitting 80 degrees at least for most of the summer. That's way too hot for long-term Port storage, though on the plus side the humidity is probably plenty high. I wouldn't even store Port in my crawl space, and I'm in Seattle which is much cooler than the SE US.

I have two big wine fridges and one small one for my Port storage. I have a high-end Eurocave for my serious long-term VP storage, and a generic (and much cheaper) fridge for short-term VP/LBV storage as well as keeping my tawnies cool. I usually can't even tell when the Eurocave is on - it's nearly silent and produces no vibration that I can feel while running. (It does vibrate/shudder very slightly when the cooling unit turns on or off, but that's it.) The generic unit does produce a slight vibration, but it's not enough to unsettle even them finest of sediment like what's found in an old Colheita. I have serious doubts that vibration is an issue at all if you're using a wine storage unit. They're designed to store wine, after all.

That said, don't get a small one. The first one I bought was a Danby 56 and it was full within a month or two. You may not think that you need that much space, but once you get started it just keeps adding up. I would not recommend any unit smaller than 200 bottles for Port collectors. (Both of my full-size fridges claim to hold 260-ish, but in reality hold about 200 each.) Smaller units are for dry wines that you're going to drink within the next few years. You're going to be storing some of your Port for 20-30 years if not more. You need storage for 80 bottles just to drink 1 every 3 months for 20 years.

Honestly, if I were going to do it all over, I'd skip right to a double-size 2-zone 500-bottle unit.

I concur with Glenn. Bigger is better.

How will you heat the tongs? If a gas heat hob, it is easier to lie them down on a support, compelling horizontal tongs.

Adam LeCroy wrote:
Any recommendations for tongs? Are tongs needed for LBVs (we don't have any LBVs ordered yet, but I'm thinking about getting some soon and we do have 18 bottles of VP coming)?

Tough question as it depends on the bottle shape. Many older bottles of VP had a flaired neck and thus a larger set of tongs. Most newer bottles have a smaller diameter neck so you'll need a smaller diameter set of tongs. I have four pair of tongs and all are a slightly different size. One very large (works great on old Taylor's bottles), two medium size, and one smaller in size. I've used all of them depending on the bottle. I also have both shapes, the "horizontal double ring" design and the "vertical design" (with one single ring you clamp on from the top of the bottle).

If possible try to get a medium size set. That will probably be the best bet for fitting the most bottles.

You can always angle a slightly oversize ring. I've done it with success.

I use a plumber's torch to heat mine up.

Eric Menchen wrote:You can always angle a slightly oversize ring. I've done it with success.

I use a plumber's torch to heat mine up.

I have never seen a tong go too low into the bottle where the wine has poured out (assuming the bottle is vertical). I too use a plumber's torch with MAP gas.

Moses Botbol wrote:

Eric Menchen wrote:You can always angle a slightly oversize ring. I've done it with success.

I use a plumber's torch to heat mine up.

I have never seen a tong go too low into the bottle where the wine has poured out.

I have on an upright standing bottle. I won't make that mistake again.

Thanks for all the advice folks. The wife isn't sold on a $1,500 -$3,000 eurocave at the moment. So I'll have to put in some more research as my October shipment gets closer.

If you just have a little port, perhaps you could find a friend or wine merchant with a proper wine cellar who would let you store your port. I pay $2/case/month for my modest collection of better VPs--everything else is in my cellar which hovers in a decent temp range for LBVs and short term storage.