storage of wine

[rajeevvarma]

I am a novice and recently opened a few bottles of white and red wine. I would like to know how long the balance contents can keep without going bad and how should the bottles be stored if they are not to be used for a period of say six months.

[Kcwhippet]

Welcome to the Wine Board, rajeevvarma. If the wines aren't going to be used for a period of six months the only place to store them is down the drain, unfortunately. The worst ememies of wine are oxygen and heat. As soon as you open the bottles, oxygen starts reacting with the wine and within a day or two, the wines won't have much, if any, of the character they had when you first opened them. Heat will also make them go bad faster. So, the trick is to minimize the exposure to oxygen and heat. Some ways you can do that is to transfer the remainder of what's left in the bottle to a smaller bottle and filling it to the very top, putting on the cap and storing it in the refrigerator until you're ready to drink them again, hopefully within two to three days. Even just recorking the original bottles and putting them into the refrigerator will give you an extra day or two, but not much beyond that.