By Katherine Salant
Imagine a wine cellar replete with racking units for 3,000 bottles, two large comfortable-looking leather arm chairs, and a table laid out with cheese and bread. It may look inviting, but would anyone actually spend much time, let alone enjoy themselves, in a room with the thermostat permanently set at 55 degrees and a humidity level of 65 to 75 percent? The answer is yes.
Among wine aficionados with sizeable wine collections, a wine cellar with a dining table and seating for 8 to 12 people is not uncommon, said David Spon, who has designed wine cellar and tasting rooms all over the East Coast for the last 12 years. But, he hastened to add, the rooms feel like the outdoors on a balmy spring day. You have to dress warmly and limit the time spent in the wine cellar to about two hours or raise the temperature while you are in there (since liquids hold their temperature much longer than air, turning off the cooling system for 6 to 7 hours will not seriously affect the wine). Otherwise you may wake up the next day with a cold.
The rooms that Spon designs typically have wood paneling, cabinetry and racking units made with mahogany, walnut, bird's eye maple and other exotic woods. But before you go overboard on the embellishments, he cautioned, keep in mind that the primary purpose of a wine cellar is to store wine. You need to start with the basics -- proper insulation, vapor barriers, and temperature and humidity control -- and work with someone who is experienced in building wine storage rooms. Though the basics may seem simple enough, you can't just plug an air conditioning unit into that extra closet next to the garage because it can't get the temperature low enough. And without proper humidity control, your corks can dry out, which will make your wine age prematurely and taste bad, or you could end up with excessive mold that will make the labels unreadable.
How can you find a person to help you build a suitable wine storage room or convert an oversized closet for this purpose in your new house? Your local wine merchant will likely know of someone in your area who does this. You may also find a local person who builds the racking units to hold the bottles. If not, you can contact Wine Cellar Innovations in Cincinnati (800) 229-9813, Vintage Cellars in San Marcos, California, (800) 876-8789, or the Wine Appreciation Guild in San Francisco (800) 231-9463. All three firms will consult with homeowners or their contractors as to how to create the cave-like conditions that are optimal for long-term wine storage. All three firms also sell wine refrigeration units and racking systems, which they ship all over the country. Their wine storage systems range from simple “starter kits” (shelving designed to hold cardboard boxes) to complex systems that hold individual bottles, wood and cardboard cases, rectangular bins and diamond cubes. For more information check their websites, http://www.winecellarinnovations.com/, http://www.vintagecellars.com/, and www.wineappreciation.com. Wine specialists can disagree on the fine points of storage and what is best for a 1982 Mouton, but a helpful book for picking up the basics and considered a classic by many wine enthusiasts is Richard Gold's How and Why to Build a Wine Cellar, (self-published and available through Amazon.com).
Perhaps, though, you are just beginning to appreciate a good bottle of wine and your purchases are small (you never have more than 5 or 6 bottles at one time). In this case, you storage needs will be modest. You need only find a dark, cool place in your house to keep your bottles. Just make sure that it is far from the kitchen. Though many home builders and kitchen designers now include an open wine rack in their kitchens, you're well advised to pass on this nifty looking piece of lattice work and replace it with open shelving for your cookbooks or another cabinet.
Unless you plan to drink the wine right away or want the bottles just for looks, the kitchen is the worst place in your house to keep wine. The quickest way to ruin a good bottle of wine is to expose it to heat for any period of time and the kitchen is the hottest room in the house. The dishwasher and stove put out heat when they're turned on; a frost-free refrigerator belches it continuously.
Heat ruins wine because it speeds up the chemical reactions within the bottle, causing the wine to age prematurely. Too much heat will make wine undrinkable, in extreme cases turning it into vinegar. The sunlight streaming through big kitchen windows to create a cheery atmosphere -- another thing you probably want in your new house -- also affects wine adversely; In fact, that's why the bottles are usually dark glass.
If you have a basement, put your wine there, but make sure to put it next to the earth and away from the furnace, water heater or sun-exposed wall if you have a walk-out condition. If you live in an area where basements are rare, an interior closet will do, but make sure it's not next to a heating duct, hot water heater or a dryer. Since the temperature at the floor level is always cooler, you should put the wine on the floor of the closet rather than an upper shelf.
To keep the corks from drying out, the bottles should be stored on their sides. The easiest way to store them this way is to repack your bottles in the type of wooden cases they were originally shipped in. You can usually get these for free at most wine stores, especially during the holiday season.
While wine can be kept in a wine cellar for years, how long can you leave it in the basement or closet without ill effect? For a basement, two or three years are certainly reasonable. If you keep it in a closet for longer than a year, you're tempting fate.
If your wine supply has increased from five or six bottles to two or three cases, your interest has clearly grown and you should consider an under-counter wine storage unit for your new kitchen. Marvel makes a $1,100, 30 Bottle Wine Grotto unit that's about the size of a trash compactor and a $1,300 50 Bottle Wine Grotto unit that's about the size of a dishwasher. Marvel also makes a $700 Humidrawer for cigars that fits into the larger unit.
Subzero's $1,600 424 Wine Storage under-counter unit holds 50 bottles. It has two separate compartments so that red and white wines and champagne can be chilled to the proper serving temperature (62 to 65 degrees for red, 52 to 55 degrees for white and 40 to 45 degrees for champagne), or stored at 55 degrees, the correct temperature for long-term storage. For the door, both the Marvel and the Subzero units use a low emissivity glass (the same low e glass used in energy efficient windows) to reduce the amount of sunlight hitting the bottles and both units are built to keep the bottles vibration free. Viking also makes an under counter unit sells for about $1,100.
If your collection has ballooned to 8 or 12 cases, Marvel has a larger unit that holds 100 bottles and Subzero makes one that holds 147 bottles. Several other manufacturers also sell the under-counter wine storage units. In some cases, however, these are simply smaller refrigerators without the proper humidity and temperature control needed for wine, so be sure to check these particulars.
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