We have a hot basement. Bottled wine goes bad.

[Scientific hippie]

Hi! I am a newbie; I started with kombucha and am now experimenting with elderberry wine (from concentrate or dried berries; I hope to harvest my own berries next year) as well as mead and graf. Our boiler is in the basement, so the basement is the same temp as the rest of the house. Right now, with the heat off, house and basement are 76 degrees F. My graf took less than the expected time to finish bubbling. We are planning to put our old refrigerator in the basement, cranked up to 55 or 65 degrees. People are suggesting swamp cooler-type methods to cool down my fermentors, although I am too much of a newbie to know if the faster fermentation is making a difference in taste. What I do know is that my favorite bottled wine, Middle Sister Rebel Red, tastes like prune juice, I think due to the summer heat; it was in the eighties a few weeks ago. When I am ready to bottle my wine I hope to have the fridge down there. But I am also wondering if this system might work, or if I would need something fancier with nitrogen to prevent oxidation.

 

[hamiltonkiler]

Heat kills wine. That fridge on 65*F will be fine. Keep arm n hammer in there to keep it "semi" dry

 

[RPh_Guy]

Proper fermentation temperature can make a HUGE difference. Same goes for storage temperature.

Whether it's via a fridge, chest freezer, glycol sleeve, cold water bath, wine fridge, small room with air conditioning, or swamp cooler, you want to maintain temperature control throughout fermentation and storage.

A temperature controller on the fridge or freezer can be used to control temperature to within one degree.
https://www.morebeer.com/products/inkbird-digital-temperature-controller.html

The wine box you linked will create more problems (oxidation, sanitation) and still won't solve the temperature problem.

 

[Scientific hippie]

Thanks, guys! I will start taking temperature more seriously. I used to use a temp controller when I was experimenting with sous vide; I can get another one.

 

[GeneDaniels1963]

I think fermentation temps are important, but storage temps not as much as long as you are not storing for years and years. My wine storage is in a shed that probably gets into the low 90s in the summer months. Yet 3 year old wines have done fine in there. Would I store a wine 10 years in there, no. But none of mine will last that long anyway.

 

[Scientific hippie]

Our current refrigerator hasn't taken itself down to the basement yet, so I'm waiting for cooler temperatures to start my two one-gallon wine kits.