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New To Wine Drinking
Keeping Wine
 You have to treat wine with respect.
And that and means tucking it away somewhere cool and dark, not leaving it in a wine rack on top of the washing machine. Wine should be stored on its side so the cork remains damp and air can't get in to spoil the taste. Avoid extremes of temperature, a cupboard under the stairs is better than a draughty garage where temperatures can drop below freezing.
Of course not all wines are built to last.
Most inexpensive wines should be consumed within six months. And I wouldn't keep any wine under a fiver longer than a year. After that it depends on style of wine. Wines that age well include most
Rieslings, Australian Semillon, Chablis and other top white
Burgundies, full bodied reds, fortified wines such as
Port and Sherry. How long depends on how good they are. A basic supermarket own-brand Chablis, for instance, is likely to keep less well than a premier or
Grand Cru one, which would easily keep for four or five years.
Bear in mind you may not like the taste of wine that is kept for a long time: if you enjoy the fresh fruity flavour of Australian
Riesling, you may dislike the petrol overtones it develops in time. Similarly the intense raspberry fruit of a young
Burgundy can acquire a farmyard aromas with
age. Don't be browbeaten into thinking that
all wines improve with age. By and large
they don't!
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