Champagne means celebration! Weddings, New Year's Eve, and the christening of ships all call for a bottle of bubbly. But where do you keep your champage so it's ready for festivities all year round? with over 25 years of experience creating quality wine storage solutions, WineRacks.com has insider tips to keep your collection perfectly preserved.
How to Store Champagne at Home
Minimize champagne bottles exposure to light
Champagne is particularly sensitive to light, artificial light, conventional, fluorescent, and natural sunlight can all be damaging. Light exposure can cause changes in the flavor and aroma of champagne, referred to as “taste of light,” and has been described as similar to a wet dog smell. To avoid this, storing bottles of champagne in a dark environment like a basement wine cellar is best, but even a seldom-used closet can work in a pinch.
Store champagne at a consistent temperature
Temperature consistency and stability are more important than a specific temperature number. The best way to store champagne is to keep it in a location that doesn't see regular temperature fluctuations, like the kitchen or garage. Your kitchen refrigerator is not ideal either as the regular opening of the door will create temperature fluctuations as well as exposure to light and a dry environment.
Never store champagne bottles in the freezer
Many of us are guilty of slipping a bottle of wine or champagne into the freezer in an effort to cool the contents quickly. Freezing can kill the bubbles in your champagne, affecting the texture and taste. The optimal temperature for champagne is between 45 and 50F and can be chilled in a wine cooler for up to 5 days.
Upright or Horizontal?
We store wine on its side in order to keep the cork moist and preserved. But the pressure inside a champagne bottle is enough to keep the cork functioning, so storing your bottles upright is just fine in the short term. If you’re not planning on drinking your bubbly within the first month, or prefer to let the contents mature, storing them horizontally in a wine rack is preferred for long-term storage.
Aging champagne
Champagne is aged to perfection and ready to consume once it’s released to the retail market for sale, so don’t feel guilty for opening a bottle straight away. If do want to try aging champagne to experience firsthand how the flavors develop, consider doing so with larger bottles like Magnums (1.5L). Large bottles of champagne can be stored for longer as the oxidation process is slower.
Click here to learn more about wine & champagne bottle sizes with our guide.
Champagne Racks from WineRacks.com
Standard wine racks are made for Bordeaux-style bottles which have straight parallel sides. The iconically voluptuous shape of champagne bottles are best fitted in a Magnum Storage Rack.
Our Magnum Wine Bottle and Champagne Storage Racks are designed to hold up to 1.5 liter bottles and are the best way to store champagne bottles at home. All of our Magnum and Champagne Racks are handmade in the U.S. and are crafted with high-quality wood. If you are just looking to display a small Magnum Wine Bottle collection or want to store a larger selection, we have the right rack for you. Ranging from containing 8 bottles all the way up to 48 bottles.
