Cellar Question

[RAD]

I'm doing a re-inventory of my 2 EuroCaves. Standing house rule (not imposed by me, of course) is "as long as you can fit it in the wine cellars, you can buy it." Suffice to say that the recent Napa trip made that clause active, and now I'm going through everything to figure out exactly what I want to put in a wine storage facility here in NYC.<P>So I'm cleaning out both of them. I have a stationary rack in one where I was storing a lot of the stuff I wasn't planning on touching any time soon. When I got down to the bottom level, I found lots of condensation and lots of mold on previously mint-condition 1997 Cinq Cepages--so much so that they look like an aged wine from an old French chateau. Is this normal after little more than a year?<P>My thought is that this particular section was stacked in rows five-high, and the bottom ones are the ones that are moldy. Guess there's not enough circulation in that part?<P>RAD<P>PS forgot to ask: best way to remove mold? just a damp cloth and then pat dry? I'm gonna be drinking these, so I don't really care if they aren't "pristine" externally, but then again, I'd at least like to be able to see the label when I pop the corks.<p>[This message has been edited by RAD (edited 05-25-2002).]