Discover How To Build A Home Wine Cellar

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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.

There are several items to consider before your begin building a wine cellar.

A wine cellar is generally constructed 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. If you live in a mild climate you may be able to create a passive cellar that requires no 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 temperature fluctuations on a daily or even weekly basis will cause your wine to age prematurely. Temperature should remain constant between 45 degrees F and 60 degrees F, and always avoid exposure to 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.

Vibration should be avoided when storing wine; it agitates the bottle and speeds up the chemical reactions taking place inside the bottle – and not in a good 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, too, when you buy wine at a cellar door and also from your wine retailer. Never take it home and immediately pull the cork out without allowing it to return to a rested state. In fact, all wine should be immediately placed in your cellar.

Remember that it is not just your wine collection which is valuable; the wine cellar itself will increase the 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. Domestic air conditioning removes the humidity from the air and will quickly destroy your wine collection by drying out the corks. There are many brands of wine cellar cooling units available to cool any size wine cellar. Your wine cellar will become one of the most important areas in your home and will make a personal statement about you. 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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