Proudly displaying an array of wine bottles may be doing more harm than good. With Memorial Day weekend as one of the busiest times of the year for tasting rooms, it may be time to re-evaluate how those purchases are stored.

Here's a premise to start with: wine is a living thing. It grows and matures with time, and it's habitat has a huge influence on how it will turn out.

However, 99 percent of wine produced today is not meant for long-term storage. Most wines should be consumed within a couple of years of being put in the bottle.

The rules for storage work well for both short-term and long-term storage. Long-term storage requires more caution.

So, the first rule of storing wine is knowing what wines can benefit from storage and what wines don't store well. This has a direct correlation to many factors including grape variety (varieties), blending, barrels, sulfates, sugar, tannins, acid, alcohol content, and balance.

Many red wines store well, but whites often times don't. The exceptions are oaked whites such as some chardonnays, and German-style whites like Rieslings.

What makes wine good for aging is the combination of acid, tannins, sugar and alcohol. These are all natural preservatives. When these items are in balance the wine will age better.

Generally, a stronger tannin wine such as a Cabernet Sauvignon will age longer than a softer tannin wine like a Pinot Noir. Higher sugar content can also help a wine store longer, but a high-sugar wine with low acid won’t taste as good later.

This is one of the reasons that Ports will last for years. They are high in alcohol, sugar, and tannins. A regular, ageable wine might last ten or so years, but a tawny port might last 100 years.

Wine needs to be kept in a cool, relatively dry location that changes very little over time. It should be kept out of direct sun, the darker the better. Humidity should be kept high enough to keep the cork from getting completely dry, but not so much that mold becomes a problem.

Some of the best places for storage in the average house according to Bob Sogge, a former wine importer and part-time instructor at Chemeketa Community College in the winemaking program, are: the floor of a bedroom closet, a basement, preferably on an inside wall, or a guest bedroom that isn’t used much (just keep the blinds closed).

Some of the worst places to store wine are in a garage, kitchen, or bathroom. These places tend to have greater temperature fluctuations and greater amounts of light.

When storing wine, the corks should stay moist. To accomplish this, store the wine on it’s side or cork down. This will keep the wine in contact with the cork and keep the cork wet. This also allows for continued micro-oxygenation which will allows that wine to develop greater complexity.

How long can wine be left to sit? Most wines are not meant for long-term storage. Drink whites within a year and red wines within a couple of years.

Wine as stated earlier is a living thing. It changes with age. When a wine is first put into a bottle it goes through what’s known as “Bottle Shock.” During this phase the wine loses much of its aroma and flavor with more of the barrel sticking out. It will often seem out of balance. This phase can last between a couple of weeks to a couple of months. Once out of this first phase the wine will get better for a while (how long depends on the wine). There is then a plateau when the wine will be at its best. After that wine will go down hill until it gets to the point where it is undrinkable.

A minor version of bottle shock can occur whenever a wine is jostled or moved, too. This means when a bottle is purchased or brought up from the cellar, if placed on the counter unopened for a day or so before opening, the taste will be enhanced.

Wine may go through phases for quite a while. Recently at a wine aging seminar presented by the Abecela Head wine maker, Andrew Wenzl, a term was identified for this process - he called them “dumb” phases. This is when the wine tastes off, or seems out of balance when it was just fine a little earlier. Remember though, that it’s not a dumb phase unless it comes out of it. If it doesn’t then it’s just spoiled.

Dumb phases often occur right before the wine hits its plateau, though a wine might have more than one of these. It can make drinking them something of a roller coaster ride. Wines might be wonderful one week, almost undrinkable the next, and then two weeks later be sublime and the cycle continued multiple times.

If all else fails, simplify. Let the wine acclimate to the environment it will be consumed in and enjoy.