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Ask anyone about wine and you’ll hear the same thing over and over. Wine should be aged. The longer it sits in a cellar, the better it will be when you finally uncork it. As with many consensus statements, this one isn’t really true.

The aging issue with wine is overstated. The first thing to understand is nearly half the wines produced in the world should not be aged. Specifically, white wines are usually not intended to be stuck in a cellar somewhere. They just go bad, although there are a few exceptions. Red wines, on the other hand, are more agreeable to aging. That being said, not even all reds should be aged.

So, is there a list of wines that should be aged and those that should not? Well, there are a huge number of wines, so any list will be woefully incomplete. Still, let’s have a stab at it. Wines that age well include:

* Red Bordeaux
* Cabernet Sauvignon
* Port Wines
* Rieslings from Germany
* Certain Reserve Chiantis from Tuscany

Of this group, the Bordeaux wines are by far the best wines to age. These are often considered celebration wines. In Europe, it wasn’t that long ago that a proud papa would buy a Bordeaux red when his child was born and store it in the cellar to celebrate that child’s 21st birthday or some other momentous event.

It should be noted that there is a general misconception about storing wine. People tend to view it as a situation where one is storing wine for 20 years or what have you. While this is a good move, you should also be storing wine you might need if someone pops by at the spur of the moment. The specific wines depend on your personal taste, but having a red and white chilled is always a good move. Just make sure you keep track of how long the white is sitting there!

Storing wine has become a major fad for wine aficionados. You can buy stand alone storage units for a hundreds or many thousands of dollars. The question is whether this is really a good move. Only you, of course, can answer that!

Thomas Ajava writes for Nomad Journals – where you can buy wine journals that make great wine related gifts for friends and family as well as wine tasting parties and trips.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/wines-and-spirits-articles/wine-the-aging-issue-for-wine-newbies-1475497.html

To understand the concept behind the humidor, one must first be informed of the long-term effects of ageing on tobacco products. First, there is the effect of bloom. This is often mistaken for mold by less learned cigar smokers. Bloom will appear as a white powdery substance on the cigar. In all actuality, Bloom is a good aspect, as it is a sign of proper ageing. This actually intensifies the flavor of a good smoke. If you would rather, you can simply dust this off or, in some cases, simply blow it off, but most cigar aficionados would not.

Mold, on the other hand, does truly occur. Tobacco mold most often comes in the form of blue mold. It is a bluish colored fungus that grows on the outer wrapper of your cigar. If you find this, do not attempt to merely cut the mold off and smoke it anyway. This can be quite harmful to your health. As painful as it might be, simply throw that cigar away.

If properly aged, Mold will not occur, but Bloom will. A properly aged cigar is generally stronger and has a much more distinct flavor. Most people will only bother to age a high-profile smoke, such as a fine Cuban cigar.

Proper aging is done via the Humidor, the focus of this article. A humidor is a device designed solely for the purpose of creating the perfect environment in which to age a cigar. You see, aging a cigar in normal room environments leaves it prone to excessive temperatures, varying humidity’s and other environmental factors that can increase the possibility of the occurrence of mold.

A humidor allows the smoker to maintain a steady and ideal environment for the aging of the cigar. The ideal settings for your humidor are somewhere between 65 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit with a humidity of 65 to 75 percent, roughly.

Do you need a humidor? This all depends. If smoking a cigar is nothing more to you than a quick distraction, if you are content to smoke a cigar that is simply aged between the point of manufacturer to distributor then the answer is no. However, if you consider yourself to be a true connoisseur of fine tobacco, then your life will not be complete without a good humidor to age your cigars to perfection.

Some people prefer to make their own humidors. However, if you do not have the know-how to attempt this, you can find them for sale online anywhere between the prices of $20.00 to $1000.00. The cheaper ones do work, but as with all products, you generally get what you pay for. In the long run, it would be best to pay a little more for the better product.