We had the chance to sit down and speak with California-based Certified Sommelier Alexis Ewing about storing and enjoying wine. The biggest lesson? It's all about your own palate and experimenting to define what works best for you!

It's easy to be intimidated by wine. It's kind of silly, though, since it's something we're really just supposed to enjoy.

Yeah, people are so intimated by wine and think there are all these rules, but you just have to mess with it and play with it and be real casual. It's a very experimental thing.

How long does wine really last?

It depends on your palate. The more trained palate will perceive wine changing and oxidizing. The problem is oxygen: it literally starts turning [wine] into vinegar. So one to two days, I think. But some people will leave a wine open for three to four, and they're totally fine with it. It's up to personal preference.

Any tips for keeping wine fresh once it's open?

For whites, you definitely want to put them back in the refrigerator. With reds, a lot of people put them in the refrigerator, but it doesn't necessarily keep the wine fresher, because, again, your enemy is oxygen. So red leave out; put white in the fridge.

And there are several ways to keep oxygen out of the bottle. Before you put the cork back in, think about it: the more you pour out of the bottle, the more oxygen is able to get to the wine. There's more space in the bottle.

So there's two main things you can try. The first is a wine preserver; I have a bottle called Private Preserve. It feels empty when you pick it up, it's really kind of trippy, but it's carbon dioxide and nitrogen, and what that does is it pushes the oxygen out of the bottle. And that keeps wine a little bit longer.

And then there's a tool you can get called a Vacu Vin. It's got a little stopper with a little opening at the top and you pump the air out. It works, but it takes some of the aromatics out. You can smell the aromatics coming out while you pump it. But those two things help a little bit. That's basically it for wine being kept open.

What about decanted wines?

After you decant a wine, it's not going to last as long because you've already exposed it to oxygen.

And is there an ideal temperature for drinking our wines? In the summer, for example, I like to chill Beaujolais, but I have wondered if that's some sort of faux pas?

I'm so glad you're asking about that, because that's something that drives me nuts. In America, our room temperatures are like fires in Europe. Room temperature that's always discussed for red wine is supposed to be about 65, but a lot of us, we chill out at 72 or 75. So for reds, for sure, you've got to throw them in the fridge for ten to fifteen minutes. Bring them down to the proper and perfect temperature.

Also, that balances the wine better. When you chill a wine down a little bit, more of the tannins show. So for wines that are lighter bodied and lower in tannins—such as Beaujolais and Pinot Noir—those are even more important than higher tannin wines because you want the tannins to show well. It's really amazing the difference.

And last, what about storing whites in the fridge?

A lot of people keep Champagne or a special bottle they got as a present in the fridge. They think they should store it that way, [but] it actually breaks down the wine. If you keep it in there for a year, it will totally mess it up. I see people do that all the time.

Also, messing with the temperature—up and down, up and down, up and down—if you don't have air-conditioning or if you keep your wine in a place where the temperature fluctuates a lot, that's bad for wine big time. It'll just break it down. It's a natural product, you know. But if you're just temporarily storing it in the fridge, and you forget, and it gets too cold, just take it out, open it, try it, and see. [Again], it's a very experimental thing.