Building a personal custom wine cellar has increased in popularity in recent years, but so have wine storage facilities.  There are many advantages to a storing your wine in such a facility, including 24 hour temperature monitoring, walk in or locker style storage and even pick up and delivery service.  There are equally as many disadvantages that may accompany such a facility, including access to your collection, available wine racking, rent and available rental space.  A wine storage facility can be a great short term solution or even temporary holding facility, but for the real enthusiast or budding collector is it time to consider a personal custom wine cellar?

 A custom wine cellar is the wisest investment one can make if you have a large or growing collection of wine and vintages that require aging and proper storage to reach their full potential.  Truly, a wine cellar will add to the enjoyment of wine and wine collecting.  Starting from scratch, you can design and build a custom cellar specifically for your wine collection, taking into account available space, budget, cooling unit application and the convenience of ready access to your collection. 

 Recently, the wine cellar became the number one new addition to a luxury home, just passing the theater room.  Though a wine room should be built for your personal enjoyment, it does add to the resale value of a home.  A custom wine cellar can come in all shapes and sizes.  Racks can be designed using racking kits or Vintage Cellars Distinctive Series Hand Made Racking.  The great thing about a wine cellar is that it can be designed and built to fit your collection and match your personality.  Analyze how much you will grow your collection over the next 10 years, how much space you would have to rent in a storage facility, where in your house could you build a cellar.

 Back in August of 2008, I met with a client that wanted to consider turning an interior closet space into a wine cellar.  The space would hold about 300 bottles and it was going to be near impossible to install a cooling unit.  In the same meeting, we ventured into the laundry room to look at using 10 feet of wall space and closing it in glass.  Once again, project cost versus the number of bottles stored did not add up.  We then walked outside to talk about an entire addition onto the home.  What we ended up with was an addition onto a house, complete with an tasting room, flat screen TV and custom hand made wine racking for 2400 (including a library ladder to reach up to 11 feet). 

 Dream about your personal wine cellar and find a way to make it come true.

 The first example is from a wine cellar on the coast in Southern California.  A general contractor was responsible for the cooling, construction and preparation of the wine cellar.  I consulted with the interior decorator and the home owner on a racking design.  The concept was beautiful with stone, artistic tile and an amazing floor.  The wine cellar windows were tinted glass. The racking was hand made cabinetry, distressed, stained and waxed to create an antique effect. 

 I recently received an emergency phone call from the client to discuss condensation building up on the outside of the cellar on the 2 large tinted glass windows.  After a brief conversation, I discovered the wine cellar window glass was a single pane glass.  55 degrees inside a wine cellar and 80 degree moist ocean air will create condensation, guaranteed. 

 The second example is from a dry desert climate.  There were many factors that had to be considered to meet the clients design requirements.  Part of that was a near invisible cooling unit.  In this example, the cooling unit was working 23 hours a day and only keeping the cellar at 59 degrees.  The wine cellar was constructed with the front wall done entirely in ½ inch thick glass.   There was not enough BTU’s in the cooling system to compensate for the heat load coming through the glass.

 In both situations, the glass was the key problem ingredient.  Vintage Cellars recommends using a dual pane thermal insulated glass for any wine cellar windows or doors.  The exterior environment can have a dramatic effect when the goal is to keep a room at 55 degrees.  Consult with a wine cellar expert before making decisions that can affect your favorite room.