How to Store Wine Correctly

Our top five tips to keep your bottles in tip-top shape

February 28, 2025

By Stephen, Senior Personal Wine Advisor

It doesn’t matter if you have one, six or 60 bottles, whether you’re building a serious wine collection or stocking up for near-future enjoyment: Storing your wine properly is important to ensure it’ll taste its best whenever you decide to open it. Ahead, we’ll guide you through five essential steps to storing wine at home, plus tell you the best way to store any open bottles you don’t finish (yes, that happens!).

But First: How Long Should You Store Unopened Wine, Anyway?

Well, that depends. Though most unopened wine will last for at least a couple years, not all bottles will necessarily taste better with age. (In fact, many “everyday” wines are meant for more immediate consumption, particularly if they cost less than $30.)

Unfortunately, there aren’t any standard set guidelines regarding the length of time you should (or can) store a bottle. Generally speaking, however, complex wines with a depth of flavor, and higher levels of acidity and alcohol—as well as more tannins, if we’re talking reds—are better suited to longer-term storage. Acidity, alcohol and tannins all act as a sort of preservative, helping the wine’s flavors to develop over time, rather than diminish; while wines that aren’t layered and super flavorful at the start will more or less fall apart with maturity.

It’s also important to remember that not everyone loves the taste of aged wine—it’s a matter of personal preference. While age helps tannins to soften and can create a smoother mouthfeel, after a few years, a wine’s primary fruit flavors fade and allow secondary, more savory, earthy or nutty characteristics to emerge. To some, that’s delicious. To others, not so much.

How to Store Wine Correctly

…And Keep an Eye on Humidity

In addition to managing temperature, you’ll want to keep humidity in check wherever you plan on storing wine. A wine’s cork needs just the right amount of air and moisture to stay firmly in place. If a cork gets too dry, it’ll start to crumble, shrivel and shrink…once again opening the door to oxygen.

Too much humidity, meanwhile, gives way to another menace: mold. Beyond encouraging, uh, off-putting odors and flavors in your wine, mold can also damage the bottle’s appearance. That may not matter to you, but it might be less than great if you’re saving the bottle for a special occasion or planning to post about it on the internet.

Protect Bottles from Light

Lastly, make sure to store your wine bottles out of direct light, especially sunlight. The sun’s UV rays—as well as fluorescent bulbs, to a lesser extent—can dull flavors and basically quicken the aging process. In the worst-case scenario, they can convert the wine’s amino acids into dimethyl disulphide, a chemical compound that can smell and taste like wet wool, damp cardboard, garlic or old cabbage (a condition known as “light strike”). More delicate wines, like sparkling wines and white wines, are most susceptible to light damage, while those packaged in amber- or green-colored glass are a little less vulnerable. But it can happen to any bottle. 

So, Where is the Best Place to Store Wine?

Taking all these factors into account, you can cross places like the laundry room, boiler room or sunroom, a poorly insulated garage or attic, and by the oven or in the bathroom off your list of wine storage options. Because your regular home refrigerator is meant to keep a variety of foods very cold and dry for a prolonged period, even that should also be avoided for more than a week or two.

But you don’t need to go out and buy a special wine fridge or build out a real cellar, either. Any dark, relatively cool area—like a basement, closet or cupboard—should do just fine. As mentioned above, just be sure to lay bottles on their side and avoid doing jumping jacks (or another ground-shaking exercise) right next to them.