There really is no better reason to consider building a wine cellar in Dallas TX than to keep your wine collection at the right temperature. Why is temperature so important to wine drinking, collecting and storage? The answer starts with Svante August Arrhenius.
The Arrhenius Equation
In 1889, Arrhenius, a Swedish physicist and chemist, proposed a formula to determine the relationship between the rate at which a chemical reaction happens and its temperature. Essentially his formula determined that the higher the temperature, the faster a chemical reaction will happen. Since wine aging in a bottle is nothing but a series of chemical reactions, temperature is the critical element in determining how fast or slow those reactions happen and how fast or slow the wine will age.
Warmer Temperatures = Faster Aging
The Arrhenius equation is the key to understanding why collectors whose goal is long-term storage of their wine are so fixated on temperatures. Arrhenius determined that for every 18℉ that temperature is increased, the rate of the chemical reaction increases between 50% and 200% on average. The warmer wines are allowed to get, the faster the chemical reactions that cause them to age will occur. If you’re a collector with a large number of bottles, you certainly don’t want them aging so quickly that they reach their peak years before you planned on drinking them.
Cooler Is Better
Over time, wine collectors have determined that a temperature of around 55℉ is ideal for wine storage. Wine stored at 50℉ or below will hardly age at all. Decades-old wine can taste good if stored under these conditions for the life of the bottle – this could be the reason that so many great, old bottles of wine that come up for auction are those that come from the cool wine cellars and wine caves of Europe. In fact, any cool temperature that doesn’t dip down below freezing is fine for wine storage and slow aging. Just be sure that a wine you’re keeping very cool is one you don’t plan on drinking for a long time.
Fluctuations Are The Enemy
Storing your wine in a great wine cellar in Dallas TX will eliminate temperature fluctuations in your wine storage. Maintaining a constant temperature, or fairly constant – an acceptable level of temperature fluctuation is 5℉ – is vitally important. When wine bottles heat up, their contents expand and in wine bottles, the only way for the wine to expand is through the cork. Either the cork will be pushed further out of the wine or the wine itself will push past the cork. Both will break the seal and when the wine cools off and contracts, air will be pulled into the bottle through the breach around the cork. Air in the bottle is a death knell for wine because oxygen is a highly reactive gas that can ruin the taste of wine.
If you’re ready to give your beloved wine collection the storage it deserves in a wine cellar in Dallas TX, call us at Vineyard Wine Cellars at (866) 615-4008. You can also visit us online at www.vineyardwinecellars.com to find out more about our wine cellars and wine storage.
wine cellar in dallas tx
Vineyard Wine Cellars
15020 Beltway Dr.
Addison, Texas 75001
866-973-1100 972-712-9600
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