A few tips (for choosing, storing, serving, tasting)
Storing your wine properly
Top tips to properly keep your Champagne wine.
WHAT IS THE RIGHT TEMPERATURE FOR YOUR CHAMPAGNE TO BE STORED ?
A Champagne wine has to be kept (stored) all year long in a cool place and at a constant temperature (which is ideally between 10°c and 12°c ). For purists, we shall add that hygrometic rate must be between 60 and 70.
Champagne is a brittle wine, you must avoid thermal shocks and high-temperature storing (more than 20°C) .
DOES CHAMPAGNE HAVE TO BE PROTECTED FROM DAYLIGHT ?
Even if, since some thirty decades, the bottles containing quality wines are made of glass treated against UV, which neatly reduces the impact of daylight on fluids, evrybody agrees on avoiding common lamps and neon light.WHAT IS THE RIGHT TEMPERATURE FOR TASTING champagne ?
Freshness is a very important factor in serving Champagne, for it ensures the concentration of aromas and helps control bubbling. The ideal temperature is 9-10 °c for a standard Champagne.Going up the range (Millésimé, Cuvée Spéciale), you may also go up the temperature, increasing it with 1 or 2 degrees and so obtain a tasting comparable to a grand non sparkling wine.
If you don't own a cellar cool enough, you may put your bottle in the fridge for 2 or 4 hours and serve it 5 or 10 minutes after you took it out.
Be careful not to put your bottle in a freezer : the accelerated cooling process kills the aromas and damages the flavour !
HOW LONG A CHAMPAGNE BOTTLE CAN BE KEPT ?
Champagne wines are put up for sale only when they have reached their maturity.
In optimum storage conditions, your Champagne maintains its qualities for 1 or 2 years.
Bottles must be laid horizontally to avoid gas loss caused by the cork drying out, even if this risk is reduced by the pressure of effervescence
DO WE HAVE TO KEEP BOTTLES HORIZONTALLY OR VERTICALLY ?
Here no doubt, keep the bottles horizontally.
