"michael" > wrote in message
...

One final point.I am aware that it is good practise to keep wine cool-
otherwise wine would not be traditionally stored in cellars.Also
cellars will have a much more uniform temperature than other storage
areas.My problem is that I do not have any storage space other than in
my garage-not used to keep the car anymore,but full of gardening,wine
and cidermaking equipment.I have thought of buying a cooler,but they
are expensive,unsightly and apparently are not very satisfactory.I am
going to rig up some curtaining to draw across the shelves,since the
sunlight can shine in through the window directly on to the glass
demijohns.However,I do not have any better ideas to keep temperature
fluctuation low.At this time of the year the temperature fluctuates
between 40F and 50F ( If we have a very cold snap,then I tend to put a
heater on to bring the temperature up a little),but later in June-
August,the temperature fluctuates between 60F and 80F.Does this really
matter if one is trying to make good wine?I try to minimise the
possibility of bungs coming out in hot weather,but apart from that why
does my kind of temperature fluctuation harm the maturing wine?
Best regards

michael

Jack Keller did a blog entry on how temperature effects the speed
of the chemical reactions involved in the "ageing" process. IIRC
it went something like this. Using a base line "cellar" temp of 55f,
at "room temp" of ~72f the reactions occured about 8 times faster.
And, at 90f they occured about 56 times faster. Unfortunately,
this can't be used to speed up the ageing process because some
of the UNdesireable reactions that can happen at the higher temps
would happen so slowly at cellar temp as to effectively never
happen at all. Bottom line: Cooler is better. Memory ain't what
it used to be. Those interested might want to look up that blog
entry and read it for themselves.

If you are stuck with using the garage, I might suggest putting white
shades or drapes on the windows themselves to prevent the sun
getting into the garage and heating things up. At least it shouldn't
get much hotter that the outside air temp that way. HTH

Frederick