Bunker bottles upright or laying down?

[MrMalt]

My first post. Digging the knowledge.

When you bunker bottles, do you store them upright (like beer) or laying down (like wine)?

I tried a search for "bunker" but naturally came back with seven million responses...

[barturtle]

Maybe look under storage or something...it's been discussed many times.

Anyway...don't lay down whiskey...the corks will ruin it.

[miller542]

upright ftw!

[Rughi]

Ironically, this was discussed just a few hours ago in this thread

Roger

[NickAtMartinis]

Definitely up. Otherwise, the high alcohol content will compromise the cork over time. If it's not a cork, you're probably fine storing it either way.

[squire]

Upright always. Only wine should be stored on its side.

Squire

[TomH]

Just as an aside, wines bottled with screwtops (a lot of better Aussie wines are being bottled this way) can be stored upright.

Tom

[squire]

Right you are Tom and I think thats a good thing. Corks are redundant for most bottles.

Regards,

Squire

[LarryG]

Continuing the aside, what about wine with synthetic corks? I'm not sure what the material is ... some sort of spongy plastic, I guess. How should these bottles be stored?

Larry

[TomH]

There seems to be a lot more disagreement with the synthetic corks both with how to store and also with their effect. I can only comment on what I have read, since to the best of my knowledge all of my wines are either natural cork or screwtop.

Many say store either way, but some recommend upright. There seems to be a lot of concern over the long term reliability of the synthetic and that some wines may be oxidizing prematurely.

Tom

[TroyM]

For wine its just

Cork = racked sideways (stops cork drying, shrinking etc)

Synthetic = standing for long term, sideways or standing for short term

Stelvin (screw cap) = standing (keeps wine off aluminium seal)

[MrMalt]

Ironically, this was discussed just a few hours ago in this thread

Roger

Thanks all for the responses. This other thread was also very useful.