How to store wines : standing or lying down ?

Why should you keep your wine bottles lying down ?

Keeping your bottles horizontally is one of the basic principles of good wine storage. The goal is to fight against your worst enemy : oxidation. It is therefore essential that the cork remains in permanent contact with the wine.. Indeed, the liquid moistens the cork so that it doesn't dry out.

With time, a dry cork will retract and eventually crumble. So, it will lose its sealing power and allow more air to pass into the bottle. This excess oxygen will result in a premature ageing of your wine.

Does preserving your wine lying down favor the corky taste ?

Keeping your wine bottles lying down allows better conservation, but does this position favor the corky taste ? Note that putting it upright or lying down has no influence on the corky taste. Indeed, this wine defect comes from a molecule that will alter your wine whether it is standing or lying down !

This molecule called trichloroanisole, more simply, TCA is sometimes present in the cork where it develops before contaminating your wine by direct contact or by the air trapped in the bottle.

Aesthetic storage, but to avoid…

Which wines can be stored upright ?

Now that you know that wine should be stored lying down, it is interesting to wonder which wines can be kept upright. Effectively, there are exceptions to this conservation rule !

Some wine categories appear to be less sensitive when stored standing. Although there is no unanimity, bottles of mutated wines – porto, banyuls, maury…– can be kept vertically.

It is the same for champagnes and other sparkling wines whose gas trapped in the bottle would keep the cork sufficiently moist.. However, I advise you to keep them as your other wines because you do not take any risks to keep them lying down.