help: bought 80 bottles of wine - uh oh! how to store for 8 months?

[mellifluous]

hello-
i just bought 20 bottles each of robert mondavi's 2000 coastal chardonnay, pinot noir, cabernet and merlot for a wedding in june. i think they were a good deal: a 4 pack with 1 bottle of each for $30. so about $7.50 each...

now, i am worried that it will not keep until next june. i don't know too much about wines. i've read that some wines need to be consumed "now" and some can be "aged."

but how soon is "now?" are we talking in the next few weeks? months? 1 year? 1 year doesn't seem so long when some wines are aged for 20 years...

so, i have a few questions:

even under proper storage conditions, will these wines make it until june 2003?

as i don't have a wine cellar, will storage in my enclosed garage be ok for 8 months? i live in the san francisco bay area, so our weather is pretty moderate. the *coldest* it usually gets in the dead of winter is low 40's, so i don't imagine the garage would ever drop below 50 degrees...

is the price i got even worth it to try to store these bottles? or do you think i could get a similiar bargain later on and just return the whole lot and save myself the worry of having bad wine on my hands?

any help/advice at all would be sooooooo appreciated! and if you have any comments on the actual wine themselves, that would be nice too! [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/smile.gif[/img]

thanks so much!!

[redmonk]

you shouldn't have toworry about it...some others may acre to comment...but you should be fine...how hot it gets in your garage may be something else to think about...how hot does it get in there in the summer?

[Innkeeper]

Welcome to the board, Mell. Put it in the coolest, darkest place you have, and it should be just fine.

[Kcwhippet]

Mellifluous,

Bay area is a big place. SF has a nice climate to store until June. Livermore or Milpitas or Morgan Hill may be too warm. All are Bay area, so it depends on where you live.

[Bucko]

Most wines will do just fine from 32 degrees to 80 degrees for short periods such as a year or two.