How and where to store your wine.
By Christopher Burr, MW. June 2025
I have been fortunate enough to enjoy very mature wine directly from cellars where they have been stored impeccably since they were created.
Wines from the 1700’s from the Bremen Rathskeller, wines from the 1940’s and earlier from Burgundian cellars and from the cellars of Bordeaux Chateaux.
I have also visited many times some of the ancient cellars in Reims, originally dug underground to mine chalk and salt, but for the last four hundred years have been found to be perfect for storage of Champagne. I particularly loved the cellars of Ruinart and Taittinger, and have had the pleasure of tasting a number of early 19th Century Champagnes from a number of Houses kept in these caves where humidity and temperature are perfect.
Having these incredible opportunities has given me a benchmark by which to judge how wines have aged from private collector cellars, merchant cellars and wines sold in auction.
Understandably people are nervous about how an aged wine has been stored and if it has been damaged by oxidation, temperature or light. This puts off many people from buying aged wines, and also the conditions of storage makes a huge difference to the resale value of such wines.
The advent and start of the use of strong glass wine bottles, developed by the English glass makers in the 17th century, rapidly spread around wine producing countries, as glass was the most protective way of keeping wine. Previously it had all been shipped in amphora, leather or most often in barrels.
Glass bottles soon adapted to dark green or brown to protect the wine from ultra violet light which was found to be damaging, as UV affects the riboflavin molecules, initiating oxidation and some “off” sulphurous aromas.
Be careful with clear glass bottles, now fashionable for pink wines, as UV light can often have a detrimental affect on wine inside if exposed, called “light struck” in Australia, and “gout de lumiere” in France.
Cork has been used for centuries to seal containers and its adaption to what became standard glass bottles soon followed.
The advent of the Stelvin screw cap has been a good innovation recently, as these can be made to control oxygen ingress carefully, in order to control ageing, and have eradicated cork taint.
The use of cork is, however, a seminal step in allowing wine to age gracefully. Wine ages and develops complexity and elegance by very slow gentle oxidation. The small amount of oxygen between the cork and the wine has a part to play, although many fine wine producers minimise the gap, and also some bottle their wines using nitrogen to replace the oxygen between cork and wine.
The cork has a number of perfect attributes as a seal. Firstly it is flexible and forms a tight seal if kept moist. Hence packing and storing bottles lying flat allows the wine in the bottle to keep a cork moist. Keeping the outer top of the cork from drying out is also important, as over time the top of the cork can dry out and shrink if in a very dry cellar.
Apart from drying out corks being damaging, some corks can be affected by a taint called 2-4-6 trichloroanisole. This is commonly known as “corked” wine, and forms a musty unpleasant odour and taste. Fortunately the cork manufacturers have made excellent improvements in eradicating corkiness. Composite corks tend to be completely taint-free, and a leading cork manufacturer, Amorim, now produce a solid cork which they guarantee as being taint free, and also guarantee a minimum ageing potential.
I should also mention, that corks do not last for ever, generally recorded to be, as a safe closure, for no more than 30-50 years, depending upon storage conditions. It is also apparent that the very slow ingress of oxygen into bottles causes an ullage after time, again depending on conditions. Ullages can be down to the middle neck of the bottle or more after twenty years, with lesser ullages after 10 years. This is normal, and doesn’t necessarily mean that the wine has deteriorated. Signs of cork leakage caused by temperature fluctuation or movement, or light exposed bottles, or dried out corks, are a far surer sign of highly likely deterioration.
So, enough about what can go wrong, let me explain how best to store wine to allow graceful gentle, and wonderful development through long term storage.
Most homes no longer have cellars, and where they do exist they are, these days, often used for housing a boiler, or even included as part of a centrally heated house. A cellar for wine, needs to be cold, from 12 to 15 degrees centigrade, but most importantly, be stable and not fluctuate. It is the expansion and contraction in bottle and on the cork, from a fluctuating temperature, which does the most damage.
A cellar also has to be humid. Again, these days, people use their cellars for storage, and humidity can be damaging to books, furniture and other possessions, so most houses are nowadays damp free.
Ideal humidity for wine is around 70%-80%. Too little humidity allows corks to dry out.
As mentioned earlier, light and movement are also damaging, so a dark cellar with no access to sunlight is best.
For small quantities of wine to be kept at home for your daily consumption, I would recommend installing either a wine fridge somewhere dark, or if you have a small dark room or cupboard, install a cooler/humidifier. Even better are bespoke constructions, and there are a number of companies who do this for wine, but they are very expensive to install, sometimes difficult for easy access, and whilst probably big enough for regular week to week consumption, but generally too small for a sizeable collection.
However, for long term ideal storage, a number of professional wine storage companies are available, with large warehouses, some better than others.
The service provided by these companies these days is excellent, ideal storage conditions, wine can be held Under Bond, which means you don’t have to fund Customs duty and VAT taxes until you withdraw the wine. It also means that if you decide to sell some cases in due course, merchants are more likely to offer a top price, as they can export more easily.
Delivery from these stores is also very good these days, a simple telephone call, and often a 24 hour timescale for a delivery service.
I recently visited a new and very excellent storage facility, which I have no hesitation in recommending.
It is run by one of the first, best and most reputable wine storage companies, who deal with the best merchants, and where I have stored wines perfectly for many years, starting in the late 1970’s.
They are called London City Bond, and have several storage facilities.
James Belton & Christopher Burr at LCB in 2025
The one I visited recently, and is in every way perfect, lies in the beautiful countryside near Kidderminster in Worcestershire, West Midlands. It has opened in the last two years, having been previously, during World War Two, a secret manufacturing site, then subsequently an underground Cold War nuclear bunker and fall-back Government centre.
It has underground tunnels some three and a half miles long, and LCB have spent the last three years installing ideal temperature and humidity regulator devices, gentle lighting where necessary, and easy to find and access storage racks for their customers. Temperatures are constant at 14-15 degrees centigrade and humidity at 72-76%.
And, of course, it has perfect security.
If you have wine for long-term storage, I sincerely recommend you make a visit, to LCB’s Drakelow Tunnels, Kidderminster, DY11 5XN. I suggest you book at LCB head office for an appointment: 0203 500 0891
Finally, we are so keen to promote the best storage for collectors of wine for ageing, that we have agreed special terms with LCB, if you mention that you have come through us, at our recommendation, LCB are able to offer a special discount on their published storage charges.
Christopher Burr.