By: Perry Sims
A custom wine cellar is the wisest investment you can make if you have a large or growing collection of wine selections and vintages that require aging and proper storage to reach their full promise. Giving the collection a proper space will add to your enjoyment of the wine itself.
A wine cellar adds value as a functional space and amenity of your home. While the purpose of a custom wine cellar is for your personal enjoyment while you live in the house, it also adds to the home's resale value; wine cellars are among the most popular features of new custom and luxury homes, and they are especially prized in older homes located in established, desirable neighborhoods.
Design and build a custom wine cellar specifically for your collection, taking into account your available space, budget, and the convenience of having ready access to quality wine. You can locate it nearly anywhere in your home-in an unused closet, a room corner, in a pantry, under a stairwell, or even in an attic-though some spots, such as basements, are better-suited environments than others.
Each wine cellar requires adequate structural support for the racking and mechanical systems. It may also contain a small counter and a small amount of case, bulk, or bin wine storage. Its walls need proper insulation to maintain constant temperature, and it should have a continuous moisture vapor barrier to prevent condensation within its walls and hold its humidity. The cellar's door must be sealed with perimeter weather stripping and insulated to keep cool, humid air inside the cellar. And, of course, it requires special systems for refrigeration and humidity control, plus electrical systems for limited room lighting.
Finishing the wine cellar is next, most notably installing special racking. Racking should accommodate your cellar's dimensions and your collection; not all bottles are the same or can fit into standard, off-the-shelf wine racks. Other finishing touches include the choice of flooring, baseboards, crown moldings, lighting (only as necessary), countertops and cabinets (if applicable), door hardware, and other accessories.
Elegant Wine Cellars
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| Behind this heavily insulated glass door is an appealing custom wine cellar that holds more than 1,000 bottles for aging. |
Custom wine cellars typically reflect finish carpentry at its most elegant level. They are appointed with the highest grades of materials, hardware fixtures, system components, and aesthetic flourishes. An elegant wine cellar adds immediate value to a home and is a showpiece for the owners. It both stores and ages wine properly, but it also displays the collection in a manner that catches and holds the eye-an enviable meeting of form and function.
A custom wine cellar should accommodate between 600 and 1,000 bottles or more, depending on the collection, its usage or rotation rate, and its varietal contents. Even if you start with less than a few hundred bottles, you may soon exceed the cellar's capacity as your affection and enthusiasm for wine increases. A cellar that holds over 1,000 bottles leaves enough room for growth and rotation of well-aged wine, and it may provide cold storage for perishable items.
At the other end of the spectrum, a cellar that holds many thousands of bottles exceeds the needs of even the most enthusiastic collector. There's a practical limit to how much wine a family can consume, and aging fine wine acquired over decades only to discard or sell it when it passes its prime is a waste of the wine and your personal resources. Large cellars should be reserved for investment collections, rather than everyday, consumable ones.
Elegant wine cellars may feature arched niches with glass or mirrored shelves, polished wood or granite countertops, and vaulted stone or coffered ceilings that mimic winery tasting rooms. These cellars also reserve areas for different kinds of wine and varied bottle sizes, including custom racking for individual bottles, open bins for case quantities, and specialty racks for sparkling wine and magnums. Most have space within them to open wine and to store glassware.
What a wine cellar is not, however, is a room for entertaining, dining, or even prolonged tasting. At a typical temperature of 55¡ to 60¡F (13¡ to 16¡C), an ideal wine cellar is simply too cold for comfort. A tasting table, bar, or other seating area invites spending time in the cellar and raising its temperature-to the detriment of your wine. If entertaining is a primary goal, accommodate guests with a separate, adjacent room near the cellar.
Good design combines high-quality materials and thoughtful use of space. Achieve elegance on a modest budget by making sure your cellar serves both your wine's and your own needs. Some elegant cellars are modest to build, yet retain an appealing appearance.
Given its cool, slightly humid conditions, a wine cellar also serves as excellent storage place for fine furs-plan on a separate but also climate-controlled closet-and for cut flowers, fresh vegetables, and fruit. When it's finished, you'll discover what a nice room it is and use it more often than you thought.
Custom Racking
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| A faux-finished plaster cathedral groin ceiling and decorative paint help create the illusion of an underground cave in this home wine cellar. Mirrors in the niches make the room appear larger, and the cave allows both individual bottle and case storage in Bordeaux boxes. |
Wine cellars deserve storage racks, shelves, and bins designed and built specifically for your collection. Redwood is by far the most common material for wine racks. It is beautiful and naturally resists moisture damage, decay, and insect infestation. Redwood is easily cut, shaped, and fastened, compared to other materials such as pine or oak that are less forgiving. While perhaps more costly than other less-suitable woods, redwood remains competitively priced, and is the material of choice used by wineries for their racking systems.
Bottles held individually in racks should be snug and secure from vibration. The rack should hold the bottles nearly flat or slightly inclined with the cork submerged, so that the ullage-air bubble-rests near the middle of the bottle.
Bin racking stores bottles loosely on top of one another, often to save space. Remember, however, that bins make labels hard to identify, are more prone to breakage, and actually waste space if case quantities leave the bins partially filled.
Racks should also have space for upright bottles, such as for sparkling wines with pressure closures, and for screw-capped bottles. Screw-capped wine bottles lack corks to keep moist and air-tight, and they may leak when set horizontally. A growing number of wineries are switching to screw caps due to a shortage of quality cork material and problems with odor, or "nose," though these issues rarely occur in cellars with adequate temperature and humidity control.
Full-case Storage
An exception to the cautionary note about bin racking exists for full-case shelf racking. Make sure your cellar accommodates wine by the case for storage or display. Cases of wine hold the bottles in an upside-down position or nearly flat in the case of a wooden Bordeaux box. Each shelf holds one or more cases or boxes of the same vintage and label.
Avoid long-term storage of wine in cardboard cases. Cardboard cases will deteriorate in the humid conditions needed for an aging wine cellar, which may cause the bottles to break if left unchecked, and over time they become unsightly. Invest in wooden boxes and transfer bottles to them when you first store the wine in your cellar.
From the book The Home Wine Cellarby Perry Sims et al. Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by arrangement with Running Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group,www.perseusbooks.com. All rights reserved.