How long can you store wine?

[ShaiNess]

Thanks for the help Brom! It's both confusing and helpful. [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/smile.gif[/img] I know there aren't any clear-cut rules for this stuff. I'm just trying to learn more about them so that I don't waste so much wine and money.

The thing is, I guess you can say I’m a collector at heart. I have a habit of collecting all sorts of random things, and without really realizing it, I’ve started a wine collection. I have all these wines given to me as gifts or I bought during my travels. However, up until recently, I couldn’t really appreciate the taste of wine since I couldn’t stand the taste of alcohol. But for some strange reason, maybe because I’m getting older or from training [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/biggrin.gif[/img] , recently, I’ve found myself liking the taste of wine more and more. Granted I haven’t tasted all that much, but the taste is certainly growing on me.

With that background in mind, a friend and I went wine tasting at the Duck Walk Vineyards this weekend in Long Island, NY. I wanted to find more wines to like outside of sweet Rieslings so I figured wine tasting is a good way to do it without getting plastered. I was very surprised to find that I liked most of their wines and the ones I didn’t like, I could at least tolerate. What shocked me even more was that I liked their reds just as much as the whites, and I usually hate reds since I need to chill wines to mask the taste of the alcohol. Needless to say, I ended up bringing home four bottles. I would probably have bought more to store, but then the whole question of how long can you store wines came up. That’s how I ended up here. I don’t want to end up wasting so much wine and money because I was an idiot and didn’t know any better. So any other advice for the novice you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Actually, if you don’t mind helping me and doing a bit of research, could you check the vineyard’s website and check out the wines I bought? Let me know how long YOU would store them. The site is www.duckwalk.com and the wines I bought are:

SOUTHAMPTON WHITE
APHRODITE
BOYSONBERRY DESERT WINE
BLUEBERRY PORT

Again, thanks for all your help!