How To Build A Home Wine Cellar

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 as the winemaker intended.

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 all begins with collecting the first bottle and eventually finding that your collection has grown so large that it requires a cellar.

A well-insulated wine cellar can cost many thousands of dollars to construct but so can a large refrigerated wine cabinet so often the custom built home wine cellar is the more economical and cost effective way of storing your wine.

Consider the following before your start building a wine cellar.

A wine cellar is usually built with thicker walls. Two-by-six construction allows for better insulation, allowing the cellar to remain at a constant temperature. In an active (as opposed to passive) wine cellar, the temperature and humidity are maintained by a climate control system.

Temperature should be a chief consideration and also 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 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 stay between 45 and 60 degrees F, and exposure to direct sunlight should be avoided. 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 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 put immediately into your cellar.

It should be noted that it is not only your wine which is valuable; the wine cellar itself will add value to your home. So the better-constructed and larger 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. Should your wine cellar require cooling do not install a domestic air conditioning unit. Home air conditioning removes the humidity from the air and will quickly destroy your wine collection by drying out the corks. 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. It is the place where you can indulge your passion for fine wine and where you can display your precious acquisitions to friends and family. Discover how to build your own wine cellar and, if you have the space, why not consider incorporating a bar and tasting area.