Making a Wine Cellar at Home

I believe this is an important thing to have in any wine lovers’ home. Anyone who likes to buy good bottles of wine and let them stay at home for a period of time just waiting for that special occasion to open. Or just because you know that the wine has the potential to age and become more complex within a couple of years after buying it. The reasons may be very different but the truth is that for a wine to remain good after a few years of buying it, it needs to have proper conditions. The most important factors to be aware are the temperature, humidity and light. If you choose a location with proper conditions you’re half way done.

In many cases the proper location is underground in a cold dark place. This is all right for wines but temperatures too cold, especially in winter time can make it easier for some precipitations in bottle, like tartaric and color (in red wines) precipitations. Be sure to have a thermometer to keep track of the minimum and maximum temperatures. To maintain a certain degree of humidity in the room you should have a container of water, especially in countries with dry weather. If you are really into storing your wine in perfect conditions and have the possibility to buy an air-conditioned for temperature and humidity control then go ahead. For the majority of people there’s no extra free room or an underground space to store the wine, so the space used is usually a small hole or the garage where you buy some wine racks and use it to store the wine. Be sure to know in advance what are the temperatures fluctuation for any place you should. For those who haven’t got a good space or a free space another good option are the wine refrigerators which keep the wine at a desired temperature and humidity for as long as required. They come in different sizes and capacities so be sure to buy one that meets your needs.

I believe this is the most important aspect you should look when thinking about having a good space to store the wine. The perfect temperatures will be around 10ºC to 15ºC. As I said very high and very low temperatures can damage the wine beyond repair, is important to know if that space has many hours of sun exposure a day. The thickness of the walls are also an important parameter to take into consideration. If you live in a cold country it’s important to realize if snow is gonna build up around the cellar space. The thicker the wall is the lesser the temperature variations will be. Another option is to insulate the walls, doors or holes with polystyrene or foam to minimize the temperature transfer with outside. Surprising the color of a room can affect the temperature of that same room. A good choice would be dark colored walls in the inside part and white walls on the side facing outside.

Another important thing to fine tune your wine cellar is the humidity factor. Pay attention if you live in a high humidity country because it’s very easy for some materials to pick up mould and go rotten, especially those wines kept in cardboards (the best would be wood packages or a steel wine rack). High humidity can also be a problem on the paper labels because mould can easily appear. You will have a hard time reading the label and knowing what wine is in that bottle but then again it can be a fun game guessing the correct wine. For spaces with low humidity as mentioned before the easiest way is to introduce a water container in the room. Medium humidity prevents corks from drying out. Remember that a cork is made to let very small amounts of oxygen pass through it to help with the slow aging of wines. Laying the bottles will also help with the dryness of the corks.

Light can damage greatly wines, especially red wines if subjected to a long exposure day after day which is why usually the bottles are colored. Red wines will start to lose their color and white wines tend to become more yellow, so definitely not good. It’s easy to take care of this problem by adding some curtains to the windows, or even removing them

Summarizing everything I would have to say to be aware of 3 important factors when making a wine cellar. Temperature, humidity and light but especially the first two. This may seem a lot for just some bottles but it really makes a difference. Be sure to know what your goals are first, I mean if you only drink new wines quickly after buying them or if you enjoy probably paying a bit more for a wine and just leaving it to rest for a few years. Different goals mean different cares you need to have.