On Mar 13, 4:01*am, "frederick ploegman" >
wrote:
> "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

That doesn't sound right - 28 times faster for 10C difference?! I'm
pretty sure one of my reference books says it's 2x faster for chemical
reactions for each 10C temperature increase. If it was 28x, wouldn't
that mean that 1 year of aging at 55F would be "chemically equivalent"
to 28 years of aging at 72F? I've got white wines at both those temps,
and they don't taste much different after 1-2 years.

Pp