What’s all this business about lying wine bottles on their side?

There are lots of guidelines regarding the purchase, storage and consumption of wine. Some people see these protocols as rules produced by wine snobs, because most of them don’t apply to beers, spirits or RTDs; and it has been suggested that this is part of the reason why younger people are not interested in wine. Indeed, only some of these guidelines may be so useful, as I will discuss today.

For example, opening an old wine bottle quite some time before you intend drinking its contents really can get the wine to start releasing its inherent aromas — so-called “opening up” (for an example: Wine decanting: give wines some air, or Give that old wine a chance before you tip it down the drain). Similarly, being careful about the sediment in an old bottle of red wine can make your guests be more polite — decanting the wine works, but so does pouring carefully when serving (in both cases, after standing the bottle upright for a while).

However, there is one guideline that may be more questionable. This is the suggestion that wine bottles should be stored lying on their side. Now, obviously this does not apply to the vast majority of the wine produced in the world today, because that wine is drunk not very long after it is purchased (or even stolen, I guess). We are talking here about wine that is being stored for some lengthy time. Also, it does not apply to wines being stored in a plastic bag inside a cardboard box. *

The MasterClass list of the storage guidelines for wine looks like this (7 tips for storing wine at home):

• Store wine at the proper temperature
• Store wine bottles horizontally
• Protect wine from light and vibration
• Store wine at the proper humidity
• Store wine in a wine fridge, not a regular fridge
• Serve wine at the proper temperature
• Store open bottles of wine properly

You don’t see this sort of list for beers, spirits or RTDs! Anyway, we are looking in this blog post at item number two.

Let’s get one thing clear at the start, storing wines for any length of time does definitely have an affect on the wine. A formal review (Bottle aging and storage of wines: a review) notes:

Summarizing collected data, bottle aging and storage of wine is an important albeit complex and sensible process that greatly influences the features of the final product. During storage, deep changes in aroma, color stability, appearance, and mouthfeel take place and define the quality of wine, which, in turn, impacts consumer preference and appreciation.

The question, though, is: which of these things matter the most?

There appears to be only one formal research publication on the topic, from 2008 in Australia (The impact of closure type and storage conditions on the composition, colour and flavour properties of a Riesling and a wooded Chardonnay wine during five years’ storage), and it covers only two wines, both white. It concluded: “The bottle orientation during storage under the conditions of this study had little effect on the composition and sensory properties of the wines examined.”

So, 5 years of data on two wines was not supportive. Similarly, a researcher at a cork manufacturer has claimed: “The cork will never dry out with almost 100% humidity in the headspace, so it is a myth that you need to store a bottle on its side” (Storing wine on its side is nonsense, says scientist). Sadly, many of the commenters on that article disagreed with the author, some citing their experiences with storing wines upright over extensive periods of time — the corks did shrink.

So, one of the most common reasons suggested for lying a wine bottle down is keeping the cork wet. However, not everyone agrees with this, as discussed by Chris Shanahan concerning screwcaps (Cork vs screwcap Tyrrell’s Vat 1 Hunter Semillon 1998):

We drew a decent cork, and as a result enjoyed two amazing but notably different old whites. Most of the group preferred the dazzling, fresh-but-aged screwcap version. But a few favoured the deeper colour and mellow flavours of the cork-sealed wine.

One tasting of two bottles reveals little about the relevant merits of cork and screwcap. A good cork works. But earlier formal trials, and my own experience, show you might need to open several bottles to find a good cork, where every screwcap does the job reliably.

Well, all of this means that most commentary on bottle storage is based on personal anecdotes; but you may like to play it safe and lie the bottles down (Some wine pros say bottles don't need to be stored on their sides. Is that true?). However, most people do not store their wine long enough for the orientation to make the slightest difference (especially if the wine is in a can: In praise of canned wine).

On the other hand, there seems to be little argument that the temperature of storage makes a big difference, as suggested by several formal experiments:

• Wine storage at cellar vs. room conditions: changes in the aroma composition of Riesling wine
• Evidence for damaging effects of heat exposure on wine during transport and storage and recommendations for protection

To me, however, the bottom line is that the average wine lover is not someone with encyclopaedic knowledge. Instead, it is this (7 tips for storing wine at home):

Drinking wine is about people not about wine. Sure, we have lots of information and guidelines about what to do, but without my wife, relatives and friends beside me when I open the bottle, I don't give a hoot about those details. I store my wine in the “correct” manner (lying down in a cool dark place) for the expert-suggested period of time; and I therefore expect the wine to be in good condition when I open the bottle. But I am not thinking about technical details when I open it — I am anticipating how much I am going to enjoy the contents, along with my meal.

All of the details are rightly seen as esoteric, even snobbish, by 99% of wine drinkers.

This important point is all too often missing, as formally suggested by linguist Dariusz Galasinski (A better way to communicate wine):

Talking about wine can mean different things. All too often I kept hearing about residual sugar, tanks, oak, and so on. All could have been done via email. Yes, the technicalities were sometimes accompanied by the producer’s ‘wine philosophy’, but, more often than not, it sounded much better than it was.

But sometimes I heard stories of people engaged in the production. What is it like to collect grapes on the steep slopes of the Mosel? What is it like to see mildew eating up the grapes in Chablis? Or about how the producer’s neighbours helped in the winery and eventually drank the wine. At such tastings, we drank wine made by a real person, from grapes collected by real people, whose cousins, aunts and grandparents were also involved in the hard work. Wine became social and dialogic. Well, wine became ours.

The biggest benefit of wine is that it makes us happy. It was on this basis that I produced last week’s post: Interesting wine quotes from famous people.

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* Remember, in the modern world we are supposed to be minimizing our use of plastics!