For The Love Of Port

Have we been doing it wrong all along?

https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2018/ ... scientist/

reading some of the comments with the article it seems like there are more "experts" out there... i would keep storing them on their side because quite a few people seem to have had more wine go bad storing them upright. the article also doesn't state how exactly they did the research, with how many bottles and over how much time. and the difference between natural corks and "pressed" corks (you don't see these much in ports and expensive wines i guess?)

The study was for five years, which seems way too short to be applicable to the wines in my cellar.

I've seen the argument that beer should be stored upright and followed this advice, but I've found a good number of my 5 to 10 year old cork-and-caged bottles to be flat. I'm thinking of switching those to horizontal or upside down.

The study was for five years, which seems way too short to be applicable to the wines in my cellar.

+ 1

Tom Archer wrote:

The study was for five years, which seems way too short to be applicable to the wines in my cellar.

+ 1

I agree the study is quite short, but it's a start. However, having seen some very old bottled Ports that have been stored standing upright for about 100 years with the same cork, and those corks being in great shape still, I think the premise of "You must lay them down" is a bit overblown....Like so many other things in wine.

My suspicion is that the main error in the study was the conclusion about the environment, which was dismissed as irrelevant because of the high humidity in the head space.

High humidity in the head space only keeps one end of the cork damp. If it's dry as a bone outside the bottle, you're still going to get significant evaporation through the cork and possibly drying of the cork on the exterior end. So if you're going to store your bottles standing up, I'd think you'd want them in a humid environment to protect BOTH ends of the cork.

Agree with Glenn.

Two nights ago I opened a bottle of 1995 claret from a very cheap mixed auction lot I picked up last Xmas. Dust deposits indicated that this bottle had lived upright.

On pulling the cork it came out in dry fragments and the wine had turned.

Last night I opened another cheap bottle of claret from 1988 - the cork was wet and pulled in one piece - great drinking!

A number of years ago we did a trial in which one of the storage conditions we tested was upright storage vs side storage on high grade vs technical corks (in this case DIAM 3,DIAM 5, Cork Supply Pearls- a micro agglomerated cork with moderate grain size) over a 5 year period with both our wines as well wines from several of our colleagues that were either donated or we purchased. We trialed a total of 12 cases of wine. That said, we are a small winery and the statistical significance of our results/data points is limited. We blind tasted the samples after 36, 48 and 60 months- the timeframe that most customers likely would consume these wines. The results were pretty conclusive for those of us in the tasting panel:

At 3 years there was marginal difference between the natural corks and either of the DIAMS. The white wines showed decreased vibrancy with the Pearls, the reds there was little tangible difference. Both the upright and side stored bottles performed similarly.

At 4 years the the differences both between the corks and the bottle storage positions became more apparent. The side stored bottles with natural cork retained more fruit and focus than the bottles stored upright which had begun show signs of premature age and in the case of Zin some mild oxidation. The cab held up better upright though it to was less appealing than the side store - I seem to recall that we ran DO's (dissolved oxygen tests) but I'd have to dig up my former enologist's notes to find out for sure. The DIAMS performed better upright than the natural corks and the wines under pearls were clearly deteriorating whether on their side or upright.

At 5 years the results were pretty darned apparent. The side stored wines were beginning to show their age yet remained focussed, with appropriate fruit, body and color. The DIAMS showed less apparent age/development vs the natural cork. The red wines (we were no longer evaluating the whites) under the pearls had deteriorated significantly. The upright samples with the DIAM and natural cork were distinctly less appealing wines and in some cases aldehydic and oxidized, that said the DIAMS did perform somewhat better.

I should point out that we did these trails predominately to ascertain whether we should migrate away form natural cork to some sort of technical cork due to TCA and other closure issues that we had been experiencing for a number of years. We were attempting to expose the corks and wines to a number of conditions to replicate consumer and retailer/restaurant storage behavior. Side vs upright storage just happened to be one of the trial components.

I keep all wines that I care about on their side.

Thanks for that report.

I would still like to find a study of 20 or more years of storage, which might be more typical for people on this forum.

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Sounds like it's time to submit a grant proposal!

Need funds to purchase/install a proper environmentally controlled wine storage area, and stock with a variety of quality fresh wines.

Portions of the wine will be recorked with artificial corks. Some bottles of each will be stored upright, some horizontal.

Detail 'scientific' evaluation will be performed on a subset of the bottles each year for 20 years.

I would still like to find a study of 20 or more years of storage, which might be more typical for people on this forum.

In practice, scientific research projects that last longer than a phd course are few and far between.

However, despite being a fairly assiduous myth-buster, I am from personal experience, (having seen and handled literally thousands of bottles at auctions) absolutely certain that the need to store wine bottles horizontally if they are to be kept for long periods and are sealed with natural cork - is well founded, and no old wives tale.

I concur with Tom- I've been collecting wine for approx 25 years as well as being a production winemaker and I can say with confidence that storing wine horizontally positively affects wines' long term storage prospects. Incidentally, our winery switched to Diam 5 for our wines - no TCA - excepting a few that are structured for longer term (5+ years) aging.

I recall that Ficklin did a trial with plastic corks at one point Supremecorq I think it was and boy was that ever a mess. At 2 or so years after bottling two things happened: A) Port can taste like plastic and B) You needed a chop-saw to get the wine out of the bottle. Artificial corks have no place being anywhere near Port. I consider technical corks such as Diem and Trefinos variants of natural cork. Some winemakers agree with that and others don't. Stelvin caps are interesting - early adopters like Brian Loring have had pretty good luck with the things and the barrier properties of the inner liners are improving rapidly. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't soon see these performing well with wines aging beyond 5 years. Unfortunately, the machine that applies them costs more than a Mercedes...

S Epstein wrote:I concur with Tom- I've been collecting wine for approx 25 years as well as being a production winemaker and I can say with confidence that storing wine horizontally positively affects wines' long term storage prospects. Incidentally, our winery switched to Diam 5 for our wines - no TCA - excepting a few that are structured for longer term (5+ years) aging.

I recall that Ficklin did a trial with plastic corks at one point Supremecorq I think it was and boy was that ever a mess. At 2 or so years after bottling two things happened: A) Port can taste like plastic and B) You needed a chop-saw to get the wine out of the bottle. Artificial corks have no place being anywhere near Port. I consider technical corks such as Diem and Trefinos variants of natural cork. Some winemakers agree with that and others don't. Stelvin caps are interesting - early adopters like Brian Loring have had pretty good luck with the things and the barrier properties of the inner liners are improving rapidly. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't soon see these performing well with wines aging beyond 5 years. Unfortunately, the machine that applies them costs more than a Mercedes...

Plastic corks...one was called Neocorks and boy were they terrible. I know of a couple wine companies that totally switched to them and it destroyed every wine that was aged more than about 2 years. Those companies are no longer in business as a result. Alcina was the name of one, you can google and read about it. A real shame as Greg P. made some nice wines that were totally destroyed by the corks.

Those companies are no longer in business as a result.

The first and last rule of wine-making should be: 'don't do clever'

Let someone else embrace new ideas first and see how they get on. By all means conduct in house trials on sample quantities, but never underestimate the reputational damage that can done, even decades after the event, if you fully embrace a new idea that has unseen consequences..