An above-ground wine cellar

If your home does not have a wine cellar and you still want to store wine, there are several options, depending on a number of facts such as available space and number of bottles you want to store.

 

The following steps will help you in making the right decision.

 

The number of bottles largely determines whether you will convert a room into a wine cellar (or wine room) or get a wine cabinet. The largest wine cabinet will hold up to 250 bottles. For space and cost, you are definitely better off with wine cabinets up to 500 bottles. These take up much less space and are cheaper than making a wine room.

 

Of course, nothing can match the atmosphere of a real authentic wine cellar in the French wine regions, but you can approximate it with a homemade wine room. Something you cannot create in terms of atmosphere, coziness and snugness with a wine cabinet.

 

If you have a lot of wine and little space, then it is better to choose wine cabinets. Do the math:

 

For a wine room of 1000 bottles, you need a space of about 150 x 270 cm, so an area of over 4 m²; storing 1000 bottles in wine cabinets requires 4 cabinets. These take up 1.8 m², so if space is limited, the choice is quickly made.

 

To create a wine room, you need to think about the following things: the space needs to be insulated, there needs to be an air conditioner and you need to choose wine racks. Not a tedious job, of course, but not as quick and easy as buying and putting up a wine cabinet. Want to know more about creating the perfect wine room? Then look here.

 

Suppose you move frequently, think about whether you will have a hard time leaving your wine cellar behind... Of course, your wines go with you, but a large part of them are attached to the house. Of course, your wine cabinets can always be taken anywhere.

 

A good wine cellar has a constant storage temperature (between 10 and 14°C) and relatively high humidity (preferably between 60 and 75%). For this reason, do not choose an air conditioner.

 

So a wine cellar is only for storing wine. Of course, in addition to your wine room, you can also purchase a serving cabinet for your wines so that some bottles of wine are always at the right drinking temperature. In a wine cabinet, you can choose to combine storing and serving. There are 2 or 3 temperature zone wine cabinets on the market for this purpose.

 

If you really want a perfectly constant temperature, make sure the wine room is well insulated and make sure you only store wine in the space (and not, for example, your stock of food you need something from on a regular basis). Of course, with a room you remain dependent on environmental factors, but a good wine cellar refrigerator should then be able to keep the room perfectly constant. Truly perfectly constant is a wine cabinet. The cooling (and heating) is precisely tuned for size, the walls are perfectly insulated and the space is extremely compact. In short, the perfect climate for your wine, always.

 

Don't calculate your wine stock too tightly. If you have 250 bottles now and you are going to create a place where you can store your wine properly, experience shows that the wine stock will still grow. A good storage facility allows you to purchase wines young and let them age for years. To still be able to consume wine, your wine stock must be substantial.

 

From the perspective of the environment and thus power consumption, you will be better off with wine cabinet(s). As mentioned earlier, wine cabinets are very compact and very well insulated. In proportion, only a small space is cooled. With a wine room, we are also cooling the room we walk in, we are dependent on the insulation that is installed and any heat sources in adjacent rooms. With an attic, do not underestimate the heat from the sun, and with other rooms in the house the influence of underfloor heating, an adjacent sauna or swimming pool, etc. Wine cellar cooling will need to work more in those cases.