How to Store Sparkling Wine: Temperature, Light, Cork
Updated
Knowing how to store sparkling wine starts with one idea: it wants what any fine wine wants, held tighter. The Comité Champagne publishes the specification for Champagne: a constant temperature between 10 and 15°C, humidity high and constant between 60% and 80%, a well ventilated storage place, and a bottle protected from light, vibrations and odours. Bottles can sit upright or on their sides. Two things make a sparkling bottle less forgiving than a still red. There is six bar of pressure inside it working against an agglomerated cork, and the tirage stage that put the bubbles there can leave the wine with more of the amino acids behind lightstruck flavour than its base wine carried. Your bottle already spent at least fifteen months in the producer's cellars before it reached you, so it is ready to drink today. Hit those numbers and it keeps for several more years.
What are the ideal storage conditions for sparkling wine?
Cold, constant, and nowhere near a radiator. The Comité Champagne's 10 to 15°C for Champagne sits inside the range the wider literature gives for everything else. Jancis Robinson recommends constant temperatures between 10 and 15°C. Tom Stevenson puts the ideal nearer 11°C, and Karen MacNeil suggests around 13°C for wine intended for ageing.
The ceilings are where the wine dies. Ough (1992), quoted by the Australian Wine Research Institute, sets the rule that any storage place exceeding 25°C for long periods or 40°C for short periods can affect wine quality. Marais (1986) watched faulty flavours appear and overall quality fall after twelve months at 30°C. Ough (1986) found that above 40°C the visual and sensory damage arrives in a matter of days. Reaction rates in wine roughly double with each 10°C rise, which is why a warm cupboard is not a slow version of a cellar. It is a different outcome.
Steadiness beats the number. The AWRI advises against thermal cycling, where temperature varies significantly between day and night (Hirlam 2019). Those swings make corks expand and contract, and that pumping is what lets oxygen in. Amon and Simpson (1986) recommend bottled wine be stored with the cork in contact with the wine, in a cool 15 to 20°C, dry location, which is warmer and drier than the Comité Champagne's figures. Where guidance conflicts, follow the appellation's own body for its own wine. More on holding a room steady in our guide to cellar storage temperature.
Why is sparkling wine more vulnerable to light than still wine?
Because the process that makes the bubbles also raises the raw material for the fault. Maujean and Seguin (1983) traced lightstruck flavour to volatile sulfur compounds derived from the sulfur-containing amino acids methionine and cysteine, activated when riboflavin absorbs light at wavelengths of 370 nm and 440 nm. The AWRI notes that autolysis during tirage, the stage that creates a methode champenoise wine, "may result in an increase in the concentration of sulfur containing amino acids compared with that in the base wine prior to tirage".
The measured difference is stark in green glass. Dozon and Noble (1989) exposed still and sparkling white wines to fluorescent light and found the lightstruck flavour reached a statistically significant level in the sparkling wine after 18 hours, against 31.1 hours for the still wine. In clear glass both failed quickly: 3.3 hours for the still wine and 3.4 hours for the sparkling. Tasters described less citrus and more cooked cabbage, corn, wet wool and soy or marmite.
Calibrate that before you panic. Those bottles sat 35 cm from two 40 watt fluorescent lamps, and illuminance falls with the square of the distance, so a bottle across a room takes far less. Sunlight is the real threat: a 36 W fluorescent lamp delivers roughly 14 mW/m2 of UV-A, against 60,000 mW/m2 in full sun, which the AWRI expresses as direct sunlight providing 4286 times the UV-A of the lamp. Glass colour helps, and Rankine (1989) found amber most effective at excluding wavelengths below about 450 nm, though clear, light green and blue bottles stay the most exposed. Cellars solve it by leaving wine in its corrugated boxes or wooden crates. Ours goes deeper on light damage in wine storage.
How much humidity does sparkling wine need?
Between 60% and 80%, high and constant, on the Comité Champagne's figures. Climate-controlled storage facilities generally hold 55% to 75%, which is the same target with a wider tolerance.
The honest position is that the exact number is not settled. Jancis Robinson notes that 75% is often cited as ideal, and also that there is little significant research establishing an optimal range. Matt Kramer, writing in the Wine Spectator, cites a French study claiming that relative humidity inside the bottle stays at 100% whatever the closure or the orientation. Alexis Lichine takes the other side, arguing that low humidity still damages premium wine through the cork drying, and recommends half an inch of gravel on the cellar floor, sprinkled with water from time to time.
What is not in dispute is what happens at the extremes. The AWRI puts it directly: "wines under natural closures can dry out and leakage can occur if the air is too dry", and adds that most storage facilities do not adjust humidity at all. Go the other way and you get mould and contamination, plus damage to labels, "which may hinder identification or hurt potential resale value". For a cellar you intend to sell out of one day, a ruined label is a real cost against the market price of the wine. Our guide to wine storage humidity covers the equipment side.
Should you store sparkling wine upright or on its side?
The Comité Champagne says either: "Bottles can be stored upright or on their sides, in a cool place, at a constant temperature of between 10 and 15°C". That is the appellation's own current guidance, and it is the answer most readers need.
It is worth knowing that the evidence underneath it pulls both ways. One school holds that Champagne and other sparkling wines age better upright, because the internal pressure of trapped carbonic gas supplies enough humidity and protection from oxygen on its own. Caterer Magazine reported that the CIVC ran an extensive study of Champagnes stored in various conditions and orientations, and found bottles kept on their side aged more quickly, as oxygen seeped in once the corks lost elasticity through contact with the wine. Yet the CIVC has also published this: "Champagne is ready for drinking upon release, matured to perfection in the producer's cellars. It will, however, keep well for several years if stored on its side in a cool, dark, draft-free place".
The closure research does not settle it either. Champagne corks are mostly built from three sections and are referred to as agglomerated corks, with two stacked discs of pristine cork forming the bottom section that meets the wine. Mas et al. (2002) found oxidation higher for upright samples sealed with agglomerated cork stoppers, with elevated acetaldehyde in white wine from the three-month timepoint onward, though that trial used a white and a red wine rather than a sparkling one. Skouroumounis et al. (2005) found orientation had little effect on the chemical composition and sensory properties of a wooded Chardonnay and a Riesling across sixty months. Spend your effort on temperature, light and stillness, and treat orientation as the variable that matters least. The longer argument is in should wine be stored on its side.
Can you store sparkling wine in the fridge?
For the hours before you serve it, yes. For months, no.
The Comité Champagne recommends an ice bucket half filled with water and ice, 20 to 30 minutes before serving, or the bottom of the fridge a few hours before you open it, as the way to reach the ideal serving range of 8 to 10°C.
Long-term is a different question. Tom Stevenson recommends wine not be kept in a refrigerator at all, because the refrigeration process often includes dehumidifying, which can dry out corks quickly. The AWRI records the further argument that vibrations from the compressor are detrimental during wine storage, and then says plainly that it has been unable to find any literature on the subject. Take that for what it is: a plausible mechanism nobody has measured. What has been measured is vibration generally, where Chung et al. (2008) concluded that "to store red wines with limited changes in physicochemical properties, vibrations should be minimized". The Comité Champagne reaches the same practical answer from the other direction by telling you to protect the bottle from vibrations. If you are choosing hardware, compare a wine fridge against a cellar.
How long can you keep sparkling wine before you drink it?
Longer than most people assume, and you are not obliged to wait. The appellation rules require a minimum of fifteen months to develop the flavour fully, and a declared vintage has to mature for at least three years, all of it in the producer's cellars in Champagne. The Comité Champagne is explicit that the wine is ready to be enjoyed when you buy it, and that you can keep it for several more years if you follow the storage rules.
The cork tells you part of the story. A sparkling wine cork starts as a cylinder and is compressed before insertion, almost 50% larger than the bottle opening. Time in the bottle makes that compression permanent, so the mushroom shape becomes more pronounced: "the longer it has been in the bottle, the less it returns to its original cylinder shape". A cork that springs back has not been in there long.
Where a specific bottle sits in its window is a per-wine question, not a rule of thumb. Our Champagne drink windows cover the cuvées people actually hold.
How should you store an open bottle?
Seal it, chill it, and accept that the clock is short. The Comité Champagne's advice is to use a stopper cap designed for sparkling wines, then put the bottle in a cool place, where it "can be placed upright or on its side, either way won't have an impact on the wine". Once opened, a bottle will not keep for long.
The trade also kills off the old trick here. On the idea that "putting a little spoon in a bottle of Champagne's neck will ensure that it keeps", the Comité Champagne's verdict is that it is "not true at all". Use the stopper. For the still-wine equivalent, see storing red wine after opening.
How do you tell a bottle has been stored badly?
Look at the cork, the fill and the label before you look at anything else. The AWRI describes a heat-damage assessment that starts with visual checks for leakage, closure damage, wine travel or seepage on corks, increased ullage and label damage. Heat produces "Leakage of wine and/or movement of cork stoppers due to thermal expansion of wine", which does not by itself mean the wine is spoiled, but will "obviously affect the appearance, and therefore the marketability, of the wine".
This is not a rare problem. Robert Parker (2008) suggests that between 10 and 25% of wines sold in the USA have been damaged by exposure to extreme heat, and the AWRI notes that unless wine travels in a refrigerated container "it is relatively likely that they will be subjected to variations in temperature during transport". In the glass, heat-damaged wine loses its fresh fruity characters and shows more developed fruit, tipping into oxidised and cooked characteristics at severe exposure. The AWRI's own diagnostic method is comparison against holdback samples of the same wine held under known conditions, which is exactly the luxury a private buyer does not have. Judge the bottle in front of you: read ullage levels properly, factor transport into what a lot costs you landed with the landed-cost calculator, and read our guide to buying wine at auction before you bid on stock with an unknown history.
The Comité Champagne rules at a glance
| Condition | Comité Champagne guidance for Champagne |
|---|---|
| Temperature | Constant, between 10 and 15°C |
| Humidity | High and constant, between 60% and 80% |
| Light | Protected from light |
| Vibrations | Protected from vibrations |
| Odours | Protected from odours |
| Ventilation | Storage place well ventilated |
| Orientation | Upright or on their sides |
Every one of those numbers exists to protect a drink window you cannot see through the glass. Get the drink-window data for the bottles you already own, so the storage you are paying for is buying you something you can date.