Building a wine cellar is the best way to store your wine collection in top condition. A cellar should be designed to correctly store wine as it ages, ensuring that the wine develops complexity and does not spoil.
Building your own home wine cellar from scratch may seems like a daunting process, but the first step that proverbially applies to climbing mountains applies to wine cellars, too. It usually starts with collecting the first bottle and eventually finding that your collection has grown to a point that it requires a cellar.
A well-constructed wine cellar can cost many thousands of dollars but so can a large refrigerated wine cabinet so often a custom built home wine cellar can be the most economical and cost effective way of storing your wine.
There are several things to consider before your start building a wine cellar.
A wine cellar is usually built with thicker walls. Two-by-six construction permits better insulation, allowing the cellar to remain at an even temperature. In an active wine cellar, major factors such as temperature and humidity are maintained by a cooling system.
Temperature must be a major consideration and also limiting the amount of natural light. Ensure the room is well insulated – extruded polystyrene insulation is ideal. Those living in a mild climate you may be able to create a passive cellar that requires no cooling system.
Temperature swings of more than a few degrees a day can destroy your wine collection. Small temperature fluctuations from season to season will not damage the wine but those same fluctuations of a daily or weekly basis will cause your wine to age prematurely. Temperature should be maintained between 45 and 60 degrees F, and avoid direct sunlight. Thus, you can often successfully create a wine cellar in a closet and humidity between 50% and 80% are ideal for all types of wine.
When storing wine all vibration should be avoided; it agitates the bottles and speeds up the chemical reactions taking place inside the bottle – and not in a desirable way.
Vibration is a major issue during the transportation and is the reason winemakers recommend allowing your wine to rest after travel. This is important, also, when you buy wine from a winery or even from your local wine outlet. Never take the wine home and plan on drinking it without allowing it to rest. In fact, all wine should be immediately placed in your cellar.
Remember that it is not only your wine which is valuable; the wine cellar itself will add value to your home. So, the bigger and better your cellar, the more the value of your house goes up as well.
A wine cellar is generally a lower temperature environment compared with its surrounding living spaces and therefore must be treated differently in relation to those spaces. If your wine cellar requires cooling do not attempt to cool it by using a domestic air conditioning unit. Home air conditioning will remove the humidity from the air and will quickly destroy your wines by causing the corks to dry out. There are several brands of wine cellar cooling units available that will cool any size wine cellar. Your wine cellar is a personal statement, and will become one of the most important areas in your home. It is the place where you will indulge your passion for collecting fine wine and where you will display your precious acquisitions. Discover how to build your own wine cellar and, if you have the space, why not consider incorporating a bar and tasting area.
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