How should I store and serve large-format wine bottles?
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Dear Dr. Vinny,
I’m serving several large-format bottles of wine over the holidays. I want to serve them at the correct temperature, but they won’t fit in my wine fridge. Do you have tips for storing and serving these big bottles?
—Cheryl, Detroit
Dear Cheryl,
I’m glad you’re serving large-format bottles over the holidays! There’s nothing like a big bottle when you’re celebrating with a crowd. Opening a magnum always puts me in festive mood, and there’s usually at least one on my Thanksgiving table.
The only problem with large-format bottles, as you rightly point out, is that they can be hard to store and serve. While some custom wine cellars have slots designed for storing big bottles on their sides, most wine fridges can’t hold them. If you’re serious about aging your big bottles over the long term, you may want to consider investing in a custom fridge or cellar that can maintain ideal temperature and humidity levels for aging wine.
When it comes to cooling a big bottle down to the correct serving temperature, if you’re lucky enough to have a walk-in cellar with free countertop space, you can just set them there for a while. Remember that wines will tend to warm up in the glass, but they won’t get colder. For that reason, I would always err on the side of serving a wine too cool.
If you don’t have a walk-in cellar, you still have plenty of options for cooling down your wines. You could try filling a cooler or large bowls with ice and water and chilling your wines that way. Putting a bottle of wine in ice water is actually the fastest way to cool it down, especially if you give the bottle a bit of a swirl.
Depending on where you live, you may even be able to get away with putting the bottles on your deck or porch for a while. If you have room in your refrigerator, you can also cool them down there.
When it comes to actually opening your bottles, a corkscrew with an especially long worm or an ah-so might be in order. If the bottles are so big they are difficult to handle and pour from, you might consider transferring the wines to decanters or carafes before serving. There are also some pretty nifty contraptions designed specifically for pouring from very big bottles.
—Dr. Vinny
