Champagne isn’t something that most people drink regularly. Typically, champagne is a drink that you have to celebrate some type of special event.
Many people will have glasses of champagne to ring in the new year. You might also enjoy a glass of the bubbly to celebrate getting a promotion at work.
There’s no harm in enjoying champagne with a loved one sometimes if you can afford to do so, though. Perhaps you’re thinking of enjoying a bottle of champagne that you own with a loved one sometime soon.
Opening the champagne when only a few people are drinking will present a problem. You’re almost surely not going to finish the bottle and you don’t want it to go to waste.
Can you store champagne safely so that you can finish the bottle later? Is it fine to store champagne in a standard wine fridge after opening it?
Below, you’ll find all of the information that you need to know about storing champagne. This will help you to make the best decisions possible so that you won’t wind up wasting an expensive bottle of bubbly.
You Can Store Champagne in a Wine Fridge Only for a Short Time
If you want to store champagne in a wine fridge, then you’re free to do so. However, it’s only going to stay good for a short period of time.
Once you open the bottle of champagne the countdown begins. Even if you store the bottle in a fancy wine refrigerator, you’re going to need to drink it within three or four days.
If you leave a champagne bottle in the refrigerator for longer than that, then it’s going to experience problems due to the lack of humidity. The cork will start to dry out if you’re storing an unopened bottle of champagne in a wine fridge, and this will begin the oxidization process.
No matter how you choose to store an opened champagne bottle, it’s only going to stay good for up to five days. Truthfully, you should try to drink it before three days are up because it could start going flat at the three-day mark.
This means that you shouldn’t open a bottle of champagne unless you intend to finish the bottle within a few days. That’s another reason why people only bust out the bubbly when they really want to celebrate.
How Are You Supposed to Store Champagne?
Champagne is supposed to be stored in a cool place, but wine fridges simply won’t do. The lack of humidity in a refrigerator won’t allow the champagne to stay good.
Instead, you’re going to need to store the champagne in a cool place that is also fairly dark. A wine cellar will be a very good place to store a champagne bottle since it will have very little light and the temperature should be cool and stable.
The ideal storage spot for champagne bottles will be cool, dark, and humid. If you have a wine cellar, then that is likely going to be perfect.
You could also place wine in a pantry if you’re able to keep the temperature in the room at 55 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s also necessary to store the wine horizontally, and most people like to use proper wine shelving for this.
The reason why champagne needs to be stored horizontally has to do with the cork. Keeping the bottle horizontal allows the cork to stay moist. When a cork becomes dry, it’ll lead to shrinkage, and this can make your wine go bad much faster.
How to Store Opened Champagne
Opened champagne can be stored in a wine fridge for a few days. You’re going to want to use some type of metal stopper to protect the champagne, though.
Thankfully, metal stoppers that are used to protect champagne and wine bottles that have had their corks popped are readily available online. They don’t cost much money either, and it’s good to order one or two of these if you enjoy having wine or champagne now and then.
Simply place the wine in the wine fridge and be sure to remember to drink it fast. You don’t have to try to drink the bottle in one night, but you should make an effort to drink the champagne within a few days.
The champagne might stay good for five days under extremely lucky circumstances, but it’s more likely that it’ll be stale and bad within three days.
When you go to open a bottle of champagne, it’s wise to be sure that you and your partner (or friends) each feel like having several glasses. Champagne can be kind of expensive and this means that you really don’t want to waste it.
How Long Does Unopened Champagne Stay Good?
Unopened champagne can be stored for a much longer time than opened champagne. Assuming that you’re storing the champagne in a cool environment that’s dark enough, you’ll be able to keep the champagne good for years.
When the champagne is stored horizontally you won’t have to worry about the cork drying out. Champagne should last between three and seven years when unopened and stored properly.
Admittedly, this is quite a wide difference between the low end and the high end. How long the champagne will stay good depends on various factors that can be hard to determine.
Sometimes you won’t know much about how long the champagne will stay good when unopened. You will likely want to make an effort to drink the champagne bottle within a couple of years just to be on the safe side.
It gives you a good excuse to bust out the champagne. Try to use the champagne to celebrate a worthy occasion so that you’ll be able to enjoy it with friends or family members before it goes bad.
Final Thoughts
You now know that champagne should generally not be stored in a wine fridge. If you’ve opened the champagne bottle, then it’s fine to store it in the wine fridge if you plan to drink it within a few days.
Opened champagne only stays good for a few days, and you want to try your best to drink it before the three-day mark hits to be safe. It’ll be fine in a wine fridge until then assuming that you’re using some type of metal stopper to protect the contents of the bottle.
An unopened champagne bottle should never be stored in a wine fridge. A refrigerator is not the right place for champagne because the cork will dry out in there due to the lack of humidity.
When the cork dries out, it’s going to cause the cork to shrink over time. This can contaminate the champagne and it’ll wind up going bad way faster than it should.
Champagne is supposed to be stored in a cool dark place that is also humid. The ideal temperature for storing champagne is 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
A wine cellar works perfectly for storing champagne and you want to remember to store it horizontally. This keeps the cork moist and it won’t dry out on you.
If you do things right, the unopened bottle of champagne will stay good for somewhere between three and seven years. It might be smart to try to drink the bottle of champagne within a few years of buying it just to ensure that you don’t waste money.
Champagne is an excellent treat that you can enjoy to mark special occasions. Don’t hesitate to open a bottle so long as you think that you’ll drink it all before it goes bad.
I have a bachelor’s degree in Film/Video/Media Studies, as well as an associates degree in Communications. I began producing videos and musical recordings nearly 15 years ago. I am a guitarist and bassist in Southwest MI and have been in a few different bands since 2009, and in 2012 I began building custom guitars and basses in my home workshop as well. When I’m home, I love spending time with my three pets (a dog, cat, and snake) and gardening in my backyard.