Wine Racks - Methods to Storing Your Wine By Rachel A Kuptz

While wine racks are an atheistically pleasing way to store wine, they also hold value in keeping your wine in optimal storage conditions, allowing the wine to continue aging. Make sure these six storage conditions are present to ensure that your wine stays in quality drinking condition.

Temperature: Wine should generally be kept at room temperature, or 55 degrees. Here's where it gets tricky -- sparkling wine should be kept in a wine refrigerator, while white wines are best kept in temperatures of 45 degrees. Temperature controlled wine refrigerators allow you to set the temperature based on the wines you most frequently store, but a simple wine rack placed in a cooler spot of your home will do just fine. Just make sure that the spot you decide to store your wine isn't next to a heater or vent, as fluctuations in temperature can impact the taste of the wines.

Height: When using a wine rack, keep this rule of thumb in mind -- sparkling wines on the bottom shelf, white wines in the middle, and reds on the top. This rule comes into play with the thought that heat rises, so keep the wines that are best served cooler towards the bottom.

Surroundings: Did you know that keeping a wine next to fruit or vegetables can cause the wine to mold? Foods that can rot may send the moldy flavors into a cork of the wine, causing the wine to have unfavorable smells and tastes.

Keep Away from Sunlight: When exposed to light, wine can age faster and lose it's flavor. Keep your wine rack or refrigerator away from any sources of natural light, and preferably in a darker section of your home.

Sideways: Keeping wine on it's side will keep the wine in contact with the cork, preventing air from escaping into the wine bottle. Different types of wine racks will allow you to tilt the wine to an optimal level, allowing the wine cork to stay wet and prevent oxygen from coming in.

Air Circulation: Wine can mold. If you keep wine hidden in a closet or dark room, make sure that there is a steady amount of circulation. Just like you wouldn't keep clothes in a moldy closet, make sure your that the place you store your wine is clean and free of mold.

Rachel Kuptz is a wine enthusiast and a collector of wine racks. For more information or to shop for a wine rack online, visit http://WineRackBar.com