Where To Build A Home Wine Cellar
Building a home wine cellar is the perfect way to age your wine collection. Your wine cellar must be designed to age the wine in the right conditions as it matures, ensuring that the wine develops complexity and does not oxidize .
Building a home wine cellar from scratch may seem like a daunting process, but the first step that proverbially applies to climbing mountains applies to wine cellars, too. Of course, it all starts with collecting the first bottle and eventually finding that your collection has grown so large that you can no longer store it.
A well-built home wine cellar can cost you many thousands of dollars but so can a large refrigerated wine cabinet so that often a custom built wine cellar at home can be the most economical and cost effective way of storing your wine collection.
Take the following things into consideration before you begin construction on your wine cellar.
Temperature must be a first consideration plus strictly limiting the amount of natural light. Ensure the room is well insulated – extruded polystyrene insulation is ideal. If you live in a mild climate you may be able to build a passive wine cellar that requires no cooling system.
A wine cellar is generally constructed with thick walls. Two-by-six construction will allow for substantial insulation, allowing the cellar to remain at a constant temperature. In an active wine cellar, major factors such as temperature and humidity are maintained by a cooling system.
Temperature fluctuation of more than a few degrees 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 always be between 45 and 60 degrees F, and avoid direct sunlight. It is possible to build a wine closet or a wine cupboard at home that will have the required humidity level of between 50% and 80% that is ideal for all types of wines.
Your must avoid vibration when storing wine; it agitates the bottle and speeds up the chemical reactions taking place inside the bottle – and not in a good way.
The transportation of wine can become a major vibration issue and is the reason most shippers recommend allowing your wine to rest after extended travel. This is important, also, when you buy wine from a winery or even from your local wine outlet. Never take it home and pull the cork out 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 generally maintains a lower temperature compared to its surrounding living spaces and therefore must be treated differently in relation to those spaces. Should your wine cellar require cooling do not install 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 makes a personal statement about you, and will become the most important area in your home. This is the place where you will indulge your passion for collecting fine wine and where you will display your precious acquisitions. Click here to discover how to build a home wine cellar and, if you have the space, you could try incorporating a bar or a wine tasting area.
