Copyright 1996 by Robin Garr. All rights reserved.
Good question! I'll tell you that I spend a lot of time pondering it, because my own wine collection is stored under even worse conditions than yours. I don't keep a temperature-controlled cellar -- not worth it to me, since so much of what I drink is current releases -- so I'm compelled to keep my small collection of cellar-worthy wines at ambient room temperature. Here in the Ohio Valley, that means I can't escape summer daytime peaks well into the lower 80s, even in an air-conditioned indoors. (My wife won't let me crank the a/c down any more than that, reasoning that even 20-year-old Latour is cheaper than 20 years of high electric bills.)My best evidence based on going on 15 years of experience as a fairly serious wine fancier is that, while a constant 55-60 is optimal, and may be necessary for very long-term storage (decades) of very high-end wines (first growths and the equivalent), an ambient room-temperature storage area in a typical U.S. urban or suburban home with air conditioning isn't going to push sturdy reds, in particular, over the hill too much before their time.
Specifically, I've kept midrange Italian reds, decent California Cabernets and some "lesser" Bordeaux for as long as 10 years and haven't seen any signs of infelicitous aging. I've got some '88 Cos that's doing very well and has years in it yet, and (as noted on my notes page) pulled cork on an '89 Senejac that I'd been holding since release and found it noplace near ready yet.
Whites are a little more iffy, being more fragile, but frankly, I don't cellar whites. In the realm of minor evidence, though, a bunch of us on the CompuServe Wine Forum tried an experiment of "cellaring" Fetzer 1988 Gewurztraminer -- a wine that the conventional wisdom would define as totally unsuited for aging -- and it was better after five years than it was on release -- it dried out considerably, got more complex, but didn't lose its fruit. Go figure.
So to make a long story short (I ought to put this stuff in a FAQ), treat your wine with as much care as you can give it. Keep it away from heavily trafficked areas in your house and away from heat sources -- particularly, out of the kitchen. You probably know this stuff, but I'll repeat it for closure. Look for the coolest room you've got. Might be the basement, or might not, if your basement gets warm during furnace season. If your house has window a/c units, consider putting your wine in a separate room with a window unit that you're willing to crank down and leave running on the summer's hottest days.
Mainly, avoid sudden, dramatic temperature changes if you can, and avoid the rooms most subject to extremes of heat and cold. And if you buy cases, monitor their progress -- when you think a wine might be getting on, check it out, and take a note, whether you keep it in the computer or just tack it to the shelf.
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