Well of course, you may not be able to stock your wine cellar in the same way as a billionaire might, but do not think that your wine cellar could never be as well designed as the people with the “serious money”. Far from it, your wine cellar design, carefully planned and well constructed, could be as good, if not better than the ones that the super-rich have constructed. Read on to discover the many design tips that the best experts in wine cellar design have used and are continuing to use to delight and satisfy their many customers!
For many successful and rich people, the wine cellar design and construction is just part of an overall far greater project, sometimes the amount of work and attention that is given to the wine cellar is at best cursory and often almost neglected.
However, some thoughts need to be given as to why many famous Hollywood personalities have spent serious money to get their wine cellars just right. These people have realized that taking care of fine wine is a sensible course of action, as the storage conditions are essential to ensuring that the fine wine being stored is kept in top condition. Even if you don’t have a wine cellar stocked with fabulously expensive wines, you too can make sure your precious wines are kept in a first-class condition.
Necessity is the mother of invention
This well known phrase applies itself perfectly to the challenge of building an effective, functional and easy to maintain wine cellar. What you need to consider is what improvements you would want to make to your existing wine storage facilities?
If you are storing your wine in racks above ground in your kitchen, or in your garage, you will know that the effects of excessive heat in your kitchen or excessive cold in your outbuildings in winter can really affect the quality of the wine that you are storing. Wine needs to be kept at a constant temperature and the humidity is important, as it affects the condition of the cork bottle stoppers.
Too much humidity and they expand and can burst the neck of the bottle, too little and they allow they cause air to seep in and ruin the wine by exposure. You need easy access to the wine bottles that you are storing so that you can keep them in tiptop condition.
The experience of the wine rack
Many people who appreciate good wine will have already installed a wine rack in their cellar that consists of individual square openings, where you place the bottle with the cork facing outwards. Having pulled the bottle out from its draw, one after another to check which one it is, and probably ripping the label, you will more than likely come to the conclusion that this is not the smartest way to store your precious vintage wines. Because as the sediment is disturbed and the wine risks being tainted from over handling, as you place it label up again.
Therefore, it is time to redesign your wine cellar in all ways possible. Your key targets should be the following:
• The wine cellar should be underground, subterranean cellars have a more or less constant temperature of 11c or about 58f, this is ideal to preserve good wine for a long time and this temperature is more or less constant 6 feet down across the globe without excessive ventilation.
• Your wine racks should hold more than one bottle to make access to them easy. You should use trays allowing you to expose five or six bottles at a time that can be drawn out smoothly and easily, this avoids the risk of the bottles being disturbed and shaken when it is time to inspect them.
• Your wine inventory should be stored in a visible and logical manner. This means that you should have a system that works easily for you. For example as you enter the cellar, the newest additions to your cellar should be the most immediately at hand, as you move through your wine cellar you move to older wines and rarer vintages. You can divide each section by country, region and vineyard according to your preference and taste.
The most important factor, apart from making sure that your wine is stored at the right temperature and humidity, and in a location that is safe, is to make sure that you can easily access your wines, find exactly the one you are looking for and maintain it perfectly. You should make sure that you have a system of notes and instructions that will allow someone who is looking after your wine when you are busy to follow the rules precisely. Spending a moment to detail and catalogue your cellar will be time well spent from all points of view!
