People who are passionate about wine usually start to collect it and as the wine collection grows you begin looking for a place to store your wine collection.

A cupboard or closet can easily be turned into a mini wine cellar to store your growing wine collection.

However, before you start building your mini wine closet consider the position of the closet in relation to the rest of the house.

Avoid converting a closet located against an outside wall into a wine cellar. From season to season the other walls of your home may be subject to wide temperature fluctuations. Ideally, choose an internal closet where your wine will be able to be stored at a more constant temperature.

The speed and degree of any temperature changes are critical in successfully storing and aging wine. A gradual change of a few degrees between summer and winter won’t matter. A similar change each day will certainly cause harm to your wines by ageing them too quickly.

The major rule when you are storing your wine is to avoid wide fluctuations in temperature. Damage of this type will be evident immediately from the stickiness that often forms around the capsule. Over time the continual expansion and contraction of the wine will damage the integrity of the cork. It’s just like having the cork removed and replaced every day. When this occurs, tiny quantities of wine may be pushed out along the edge of the cork – between the cork and the neck of the bottle – allowing air to seep back in. Once air comes into contact with your wine the process of oxidation begins and your wine will be ruined.

At 55º to 58ºF the wine will age gracefully, enabling it to fully develop as the winemaker intended. Higher temperatures will age wine more rapidly and cooler temperatures will slow down the ageing process. The damage done to your wine will be irreversible if it is stored at a temperature above 82ºF for even a month.

Perhaps the most difficult part of building a mini wine cellar closet is finding other locations to store what is already in the closet!! Don’t hesitate … remove all the present contents (move them elsewhere / give away / auction them) and start out with an empty closet!

Purchase inexpensive wine racks from an online retailer, hardware store or storage shop and you’ll have a simple but effective mini wine cellar.

Wine rack designs vary in the number of bottles they can carry; price variations have less to do with efficiency and more to do with aesthetics.

Individual racks makes it easy to select bottles. If you place racks against only one wall of the closet there may still be floor or shelf space available for wines that you purchase by the case.

Filed under: Wine and Food by admin
No Comments »