On 1/25/17 5:34 PM, graham wrote:

> Many thanks! Mine is also a passive, uninsulated, concrete basement. The
> storage area usually maintains a fairly stable temperature in the 14-15C
> range (57-59F) in the winter and 16-17C (61-63F) in the summer. Several
> knowledgeable wine buffs have been telling me to drink up my 2004
> clarets, but they are still not ready, and they are a mix of 1st to 5th
> Growths. I don't buy privately but occasionally there are obvious
> joblots of wines that the agents can't shift, being sold at bargain prices.

My cellar is also passively cooled, below grade and insulated. Living
in a region that experiences enormous temperature swings (lows of
-10°F/-23°C, highs of 100°F/38°C), I was concerned about temperature
stability in the cellar, but an excursion thermometer shows that in the
coldest winter the lowest cellar temperature is 45°F/7°C and in the
hottest summer the cellar will reach 63°F/17°C, which is within my range
of comfort, metaphorically speaking.

Dale and I some years ago participated in a trial where we stored
several wines in temperature unregulated locations (in my case, a closet
on the top floor of our house) for several years and compared them to
bottles of the same wine stored in our cellars. The results were
interesting in that the effect was less pronounced than I think anyone
had anticipated, but the cellar-stored wines were marginally fresher and
fruitier.

In examining bottles stored long-term in our cellar, I've found them to
be in good shape and comparable in most ways to bottles of the same wine
stored in "temperature-controlled" conditions, though mine often show a
bit more mature than wines stored at a constant 55°F/13°C. Since I'm
not getting any younger, this "problem" bothers me less and less

Mark Lipton


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