If you’re new to wine and wine storage, there’s a good chance you’ve had one or two mishaps that have resulted in your wine turning into a disgusting vinegar-flavoured liquid that is good for almost nothing other than adding some flavour to a salad.

One thing to keep in mind before we get on with our list of tips is that you may want to make sure you have some extra space for your wine storage or have a space in the home that is suitable for wine storage before you begin investing in a large wine collection that you find a little too difficult to take care of correctly.

You should always make sure to check your wines before purchase too, as some of these have a specific storage requirement that can result in you losing a great quality wine if you can’t store it well enough.

All that out of the way, let’s get into how to keep your wine from turning into expensive vinegar.

Re-cork it properly

When it comes to open wine you’re always going to want to make sure you’re corking it correctly again to hold on to as much of that flavour as possible.

Typically you won’t need to worry too much about your wine going bad if you’re only going to drink it in the next day or two, though if you’re going to let it sit for a few weeks or even months after opening it, you’re going to want to make absolutely certain that you’re re-corking it correctly and hanging on to as much of that flavour as you can.

One thing to make a note of is that some wines, like the ones here, don’t always need to be recorked or pedantically sealed, they can simply be recapped and stored in the fridge.

Keeping wine refrigerated is an essential

Another key point to keep in mind when it comes to correctly storing wine is making sure that you’re keeping it refrigerated after you’ve opened it. This means that you will want to make sure that the wine that is meant for the fridge is kept in the fridge after you’ve opened it.

As you would with the food you’ve opened, an opened and re-corked bottle of wine needs to be placed in the fridge to keep it fresh and prevent it from slowly forming that unappealing vinegary taste after a day or even a few hours.

Make use of half-bottles

One commonly overlooked step in storing your wine after you’ve opened it is making use of half bottles to stop the wine from going bad from the air inside the bottle.

To expand on this, after you’ve opened your wine bottle, there is going to be a lot of air entering the bottle and so you will slowly see this air flattening your wine and eventually making it taste disgusting, and so it is always suggested that you either drink from half bottles that are easy to finish or you can de-bottle your wine into a bottle that is not going to have a tonne of air in it. This may seem like a step that is rather cumbersome, though it is imperative that you do this to keep your wines from going off.

Don’t actually open your bottles

A surefire way to hang on to your wines and prevent them from going bad is not actually opening your bottles and using a cork lifting or separating mechanism instead. This is going to stop you from losing the wine bottles and allows you to keep them stored correctly without actually breaking that airtight seal.

These tools or a Coravin are going to make sure you’re able to ‘open’ your wine bottles and pour what you need and allow the cork to reseal itself without issue – it is one of the most effortless ways to keep your wine from turning into vinegar given that you’re not actually opening the bottle.

Considering Finishing it Off

Our final tip might be the most exciting to hear, and that is that you should simply finish it if it isn’t a prized bottle of wine that you’re looking to keep for years or just a few months from opening it.

There are generally around four to five standard drinks in a bottle of wine and so with a friend or two, you’ll be able to finish off the bottle without too much issue.

The Takeaway

Keep in mind that given there are plenty of ways to reseal and save a bottle of wine, you can feel free to have a glass or two of your favourite wines without having that fear that they’ll taste awful in the weeks to come.