Sunday, April 5, 2009

Whatcha learnin' about today?

Between bouts of exchanging all parts my car's interior to a different color, the wine chiller arrived today. Did a little research on storing fine wines, and what the issues are; here's what I've learned:

1: There are multiple kinds of catalyzation in the process of aging wines. The trick is to get them all to arrive at their perfect solution at the same time by controlling the temperature. Apparently the best temperature for this is around 56f

2: Temperature stability is very important because the thermal expansion of the wine causes gasses to breath through the cork. Constant cycling of temperature will cause the wine's vapor to be exchanged with oxygen, ruining the wine (or at least lessening the amount in the bottle, depending).

3: If the cork becomes too dry, it will shrink in the bottle and allow more gasses to exchange. For that reason you need to maintain a reasonable humidity level in the storage area. But not so high that mold can develop. This means 50-80%.

4: Blockout light: UV can cause some of the reactions to catalyze faster than others, changing the flavor of the wine.

Somewhere down the road I figure I'll make a proper wine cabinet- maybe oak? I'm also thinking I'll do a frieze of some story CNC'd or carved into wooden panels. Oisen and Niamh maybe? The non-christanized version, of course. Who doesn't love a rediculously old Irish tale?

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