Ancient Clay Jugs (Photo by Thomas Reichart)

While these 7000+ year-old clay jugs were kept in cool places, evidence suggests the wine inside was not aged nearly as long as most bottled wine is today.  In fact, when wine was later stored in wooden barrels for the first time, it was “aged” for a possibly shorter period of time.  Depending on the barrel’s construction, sometimes a wine’s barrel life was just long enough to transport it to its final trade destination before spoiling.  It was only when glass blowing technology was re-perfected (c.a. the 18th century) that glass bottles with smaller bottlenecks allowed for airtight wine storage.  This is when it finally became possible to age wine in the tradition we follow, today. Interestingly, while the English were the first to seal wine bottles with cork, wine bottles were not the first bottles to be corked.  Medicines, beer, and bottled beauty products benefited from corks long before wine!  Since aging wine is a recent development (relatively speaking), it’s amazing that the art of wine aging has been perfected to such a fine degree so rapidly.

Climadiff Diva 265 Bottle Multi-Temperature Wine Cabinet

We now know so much about optimal temperature control, humidity levels, and harmful UV rays, that custom wine cellars can be designed to optimally age any collection of wine.  And many wine storage units, like the Climadiff Diva 265 Bottle Multi-Temperature wine cabinet, even have UV-resistant doors.  Perhaps the most exciting thing about aging wine is that, just when we think we know all there is to know about it, some new discovery or innovation makes us think again: a new way to preserve wine, a new way to seal bottles, or new scientific information that allows for even greater precision when aging wine for optimal taste.  For more fascinating information about the history of wine aging, check out Vintage Cellars’ The Science of Wine Aging.  Enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! If you’re busy cooking today, check out our post from earlier this week on red & white wine sauces to go with your turkey and choosing wine for your Thanksgiving meal, or run through the wine & turkey or holiday tags for even more ideas!

Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States (image from Wikipedia)

To date, the most expensive bottle of wine sold at auction was a 1787 label-less bottle with “Lafite” and “Th. J.” etched on its front; it was a bottle of wine which some believe to have belonged to Thomas Jefferson.  (The controversy surrounding this claim continues.)  Though the value of the wine was listed as “inestimable,” it sold for 105,000 pound sterling on December 5th, 1985.

With today’s economic uncertainties, instead of investing in stocks, several people are deciding to invest in tangible items like rare works of art, original manuscripts by famous authors and composers, clocks, watches, gemstones, old cars, and… wines!  Much of today’s “wine investment” focuses on old and rare wines, similar to the “Jefferson” bottle (mentioned above, and purchased by Christopher Forbes).  Earlier in 2011, a collection of 300 bottles of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild sold in Hong Kong for $540,000, making the record books for the highest-valued lot at any wine auction this year (so far).

Wine collections, unlike many equities, have value that appreciates quickly because of continued (and growing) interest of collectors worldwide.  And since investing in various financial services has become less-than-promising for many people (low interest rates, stock markets too temperamental, etc.), purchasing wine allows collectors to invest in something that is not completely dependent on the state of the global marketplace.

So if, like many others, you’ve been burned by the stock market, perhaps investing a small portion of your net worth in a wine collection may be worth considering.  You’ll have a tangible product in your cellar that, if stored properly, will most likely appreciate.  Plus, if wine is your hobby, you’ll have a great deal of fun searching for those elusive bottles!  If you do decide to invest in a serious wine collection, and do not yet have a wine cellar, visit Vintage Cellar’s custom wine cellar page to learn how easy it is to have a professional cellar designed to house the treasures you acquire.  Who knows?  Perhaps your collection will make the record books for being a high-valued lot, too?

Have you always dreamed of having your own wine cellar? Or, if you’re new to collecting, is your cabinet filling up faster than you expected? It might be time to look into building a custom wine cellar—and Vintage Cellars is the exact right place to come.

Use the new Custom Cellar Design Request form, easily accessible from our Custom Wine Cellar Design page, to tell us all about your dream wine cellar. You’ll need to have an idea about the size of your collection, your desired cooling system, and your budget, as well as the intended location of your wine cellar. Once we have all of your information, we will contact you about your cellar design. We will do our best to meet your budget needs and timeline by incorporating our racking kit styles into your design.

Just look for this button (or just click this one!):

And get ready to discuss the luxury custom wine cellar you’ve been wishing for!

Vintage Cellars can design a custom solution that will hold your cases (or large bottles, or split bottles, or whatever you have) beautifully and efficiently. Or, if you’re looking for a ready-made racking system, you may want to select one like this case and bottle rack that can hold a mix of bottle sizes and cases.

Back Wall

After moving from Midtown Manhattan to a home in upstate New York, Rick Fraser finally had the necessary space to create his own wine cellar capable of housing 2,000 bottles.  He consulted Vintage Cellars, and decided to use approximately 61 Vintner wine racking kits to construct the cellar he envisioned.  When complete, he wrote us with photographs of his elegant, finished cellar that we would like to share with you.

Once Rick embarked on the project, it took him about 200 hours to complete.  Rick tells us he believes his time was actually extended because of additional “effort to ensure the room was properly sealed,” as well as extra time “required to install the 16×16 [inch] slate tiles, Tuscan accent walls, and raised panel tin ceilings.”   He also tells us he is sure the project would have been finished far more quickly if he had only to assemble the wine racks.

Right Wall

“The installation of the racks was actually one of the less time consuming efforts, and no special tools were required,” says Rick, although he also recommends using a 2″ pneumatic brad nailer to speed up assembly time.  Looking at the photographs, you can see how well the Vintner racks easily accommodated to the shape of Rick’s cellar.  “The quality of the Vintner racks was outstanding and each piece required no additional cuts during assembly,” Rick recalls.

Left Wall

It’s amazing that such a professional-looking cellar was created using easy-to-assemble wine racking kits that did not require any trimming or professional assistance. Rick thinks so, too.  “Once the project was complete, I stepped back and looked at the beauty of the Vintner racks.  I was very surprised that this was something I was able to create myself.” And we’re happy to have helped you, Rick!

Perhaps Rick Fraser’s project will inspire you to create or spruce up your own wine cellar?  If so, we’d love to hear from you, too.  And thank you, Rick, for sharing your beautiful work with us.

While the Vintage Cellars team is well-known for our custom wine cellar projects, we are also delighted to assist with semi-custom projects like this one. Wine racking kits are, as you can see, an excellent option for getting a custom cellar look without a professional build team. Contact us with your questions; we’re always happy to help you design and construct the wine cellar you’ve been dreaming about.

The Gilliland wine cellar in San Diego, built in 2009, was designed to be the focal point of the dining room. This is a small wine cellar, holding only 750 bottles or so, but it has a lot of personality. To create the space for the wine cellar, a bump-out was added to the wall. You can see the framing for this addition below:

The framing for the bump-out to to create space for the Gilliland wine cellar.

The Gilliland cellar was outfitted with wine racks and display shelving, including a display area on the left side that isn’t shown in Wine Spectator:

There is also adjustable shelving for large-format bottles in the center of the room (you can also see a Rogar Estate bottle opener in the foreground; there is a 10% off coupon for these openers available on the Vintage Cellars Facebook, Twitter and email newsletter right now!):

The cellar is outfitted with insulated glass doors framed by a stone facade and opens into the dining room.

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Small wine cellars can pack a surprising amount of wine and interesting features into a minimal space. This cellar, designed to enhance the owner’s enjoyment of their collection rather than to store investment wines, is a perfect example of how a small wine cellar can be a big enhancement to a home.

Ready to think about your own custom wine cellar project? Check out more Vintage Cellars custom wine cellars and call us for a free quote and design assistance.

Keeping track of the bottles you buy and drink is the only way you can ensure that your collection grows the way you want it to.  But if you’re like me, your average organizational techniques consist of scribbled post-it notes and lists that you are continually losing.  Your wine collection deserves better.

Disorganized wine enthusiasts, meet eSommelier, “The World’s Finest Wine Cellar Management System”.  It uses a touch screen system to track the bottles you have in your cellar, giving you an easy, elegant way to keep in touch with your wine.

Here are a few of its coolest features:
• It shows you the price you paid for the wine and compares that to its current value.  
• It uses a simple color-coded system to show you how close any given wine is to optimal drinking age.
• It includes a bar code printed that makes a unique label for each wine you bring into the cellar, giving each bottle a unique address and identity that lets you know where it is at any time.  
• You can access your eSommelier database from your kitchen or even from the wine store, letting you know at the touch of a button which bottles you already have, and which will be the perfect additions to your collection.

It’s definitely pricey, but there’s no comparing this system to a pen-and-paper log or excel spreadsheet. eSommelier is truly the ultimate wine management system.

I love the interesting shapes of the shelving in this wine cellar.  The curves and angles make the room so much more than racks of bottles.  And the tracked lighting does a great job of highlighting different parts of the room, showcasing the myriad different lines and textures hidden in a wine room.

I think that the cabinet really makes this wine room: its the delicate yet rustic design breaks up the racking, and the placement gives the eye a focal point, setting off, rather than distracting from, the wine around it.  And I love the display racks here, that store bottles vertically with the topmost bottle angled up, giving the wine connoisseur the ability to easily see what’s in each column.

The simple, almost Asian-style racking in this room gives it a clean, modern feel.  But my favorite detail of this room is the strong, minimalist ceiling archway.  It breaks the room up and makes it visually interesting, something that is really challenging to do in this kind of space, which, if you think about it, is really just a storage place for hundreds of bottles.

Wow.  This room is just magnificent.  There’s a lot of you could say about it, but I’ll limit myself to my three favorite things: 1. The small tasting table worked into the wall creates an intimate space in this gigantic wine room.  2. The stair-style shelving in the middle makes the wine seem to be spilling into the room from the ceiling–it just says opulence and luxury to me.  3. The special place for wooden wine crates.  They add a warm, textural feel to the room.

I love the display of decanters in this one.  They add such flowy, artistic shapes to a room of angles.

These Spanish-style doors are just gorgeous.  And how cool is it to have glass doors leading into your wine cellar? To be sure, the Vintage Cellars team has to work hard to ensure that these delicate glass and wrought iron doors seal just as effectively as heavy glass ones, but isn’t the beauty worth the effort?

This is a perfect example of a small space used well.  The different dimensions created by the shelving really make it visually interesting: it’s a corner rich with wines from around the world, which have traveled from hand to hand and place to place to come together here.

Curves are always a great addition to a wine cellar, because they help break up the visual monotony of racks upon racks.  But this sweeping staircase goes far beyond.  It truly gives the room a dramatic, elegant flair.  And small details like the wicker-covered wine jug in the foreground really add a personal touch.  These are stairs you could linger on, pondering your wine selection, for hours.

People still needs wine racks to store their wine.  The average wine collector still wants a quality place to store their wine. But in many cases, the luxury of a custom cellar is no longer attainable.  How can you get a custom-looking wine cellar at a kit price? The answer: Vintner Wine Racking Kits. The kit side of the wine storage has always been plagued by the lack of adaptability.   If a kit is 72 inches high, it’s 72 inches high.   There is no real design, spirit or imagination that accompanies a kit design.  

Vintner Wine Racking Kits have solved that problem.   They come in 4 foot and 3 foot high sections to adapt to different ceiling heights. An individual or designer (like myself) can add some wine racking imagination with stackable kits. There are also different base heights, molding options and a center trim molding to create a custom wine cellar feel.  Recently, to help Vintage Cellars customers fit into a specific budget, I have designed a specific wine cellar using Vintner Kits. I’ve been impressed with the results. If your budget does not allow a complete high quality custom design, semi-custom wine racking kits are your next best option. It’s flexible, design-friendly and high quality. Sound like the solution for you? Call me and let’s discuss your new almost-custom wine cellar design.

jake