05 Dec 2012 Advice for bag-in-box wine drinkers: Keep it cool
The researchers at the University of California, Davis, note that that compounds in wine react with oxygen in the air to change the way wine looks, tastes and smells. These reactions speed up with increasing temperature.
Many winemakers are moving away from the traditional packaging for wine — glass bottles sealed with a natural cork stopper — and trying synthetic corks, screwcaps or bag-in-box. The scientists wanted to find out how this transition might affect the taste and aroma of wine under different storage conditions.
Using chemical analysis and a panel of trained tasters, the authors studied how storage at various temperatures affected unoaked California Chardonnay stored for three months in different wine packaging types: natural and synthetic corks, screwcaps and two kinds of bag-in-box containers (with and without MAP).
Each of these five packaging configurations was stored at three temperatures (10, 20, and 40°C) for three months in the dark. During the storage period, dissolved and headspace (HS) oxygen levels were monitored using noninvasive oxygen sensors
Storage temperature had the biggest impact on all of the wines.
Bag wine stored at 20 and 40°C aged significantly faster than the bottled counterparts, becoming darker and developing vinegar notes. All the wines they tested aged better when stored at 10°C.
Journal Reference: