Are you a wine collector or someone who loves parties and enjoys a sip of the best wine? Then, it’s time to prepare your wine storage cellar. You need one as the wine needs to be stored in a controlled temperature area to keep well for a long time. So what are the tips to help you design the perfect wine cellar for your collection?
- Choose the right location.
Pick the location you want to set up your cellar home. Always ensure you maintain the conditions needed to store wine for many years. For example, you can build your custom wine room in the basement as it’s easy to preserve uniform temperatures and humidity. Another place you can build is under the staircase; it’s a great space where you can build your wine cellar.
- Environment
Wine needs more than just installing wine cellar racks to mature. Therefore it’s crucial to have the proper environmental conditions and the correct wine cellar temperatures. This means you need a cooling unit that offers consistent and low temperatures of all-year-round 12-15 degrees. Also, you need high humidity of about 70 percent, minimal vibration, fresh airflow, and a UV-free environment.
However, if your wine cellar is dry, you will need a humidifier to maintain the correct humidity.
- Insulation
Always have plans when getting wine cellar ideas. Building one can be a challenge and financial draining. However, it’s manageable if you factor in it at the beginning of your plan. Insulation will give your wine more life and at its best. Today most people use glass rooms and doors for their custom wine rooms. However, you need to know that even the doors must be double glazed and argon-filled. In addition, each panel needs to be coated in an energy filter to allow the wine cellar conditioner to function well. It helps in reducing the amount of energy used.
- Appearance and feel
Often it is easy to think about form over function in a wine cellar. Avoid rushing into the design as it can lead to frustrations later. You need first to assess how much wine you are likely to store. After you are done, decide on the racking, whether you will do a single bottle or bulk storage. In addition, you need to know if you want to maximize the space or leave an area to display the bottles? Now you can decide how you want it to look and the material you will use. The most commonly used are timber and steel.
- Lighting
The lighting is people’s biggest mistake when doing a wine cellar setup. Avoid using bright bulbs and lamps that can cause harm before doing lighting research on modern wine cellar lighting. Instead, use UV-free options such as LED, soft glow, or pendant lighting to be safer. All these bring a moody ambiance fit for a wine cellar. However, even if you do the correct lighting, reduce the glow when in the cellar.
Building a cellar is challenging as many aspects, such as climate, storage, and control, are involved. Also, the process is time-consuming, expensive, and tedious. So before starting, be well prepared financially, emotionally, and physically.
