The Wine Chipmunk:Building Wine Storage Racks

In order for your wine to age properly in your wine cellar it's recommended that you keep the space's temperature between 45 and 60 degrees F. Too cold and it will slow down the aging process--not good if your wine has been sitting in that cellar for a few years in anticipation of a great wine that has had its aging time cut in half by the cold.

Alternately, if the room is too warm (say 80 degrees F) some of the more volitile compounds in the wine may be spoiled and ruin your great wine.

Temperature swings are another no-no when storing wine. Even if your room is slightly higher or lower in temperature than is optimum, its a lot better than a room with a 10 degree temperature swing on a regular basis. The key is consistenly keeping your wine as close as possible to the recommended temperatures. A gradual rise or fall between seasons is OK but avoid those drastic and constant swings.

So why am I bringing this up? Because I just discovered two days ago that our wine was being stored much too cold. I've mentioned before that my husband and I are in the process of building a new wine cellar in a spare room of ours. In the mean time we've been storing our wine in that room, with the door closed, and the temperature has been perfect.

But the other day my brother in law was over and we decided to have a bottle of wine. Down my husband went to the room and brought up a rather chilly bottle. Turns out that the current cold snap we've been suffering through is affecting our wine storage room more than we thought!

When we poured our wine into our glasses we stuck a thermometer in it and discovered our poor little red was a fridgid 52 degrees.

It was an easy fix...we just opened the door of the room...but we were glad we caught it when we did. So as a cautionary note, I suggest you keep a thermometer near where you store your wine and check it regularly. You just never know when a cold snap or heat wave is going to make its way to your precious wine.

So you're thinking to yourself "Sure, it's easy for you to say building wine storage racks and creating a wine cellar is easy, you've already got one!" Well, actually I don't. You see my husband and I just recently moved and are now in the midst of renovating and redecorating a new home (ugh!). In our old home we had a perfect little spot for storing our wine. It was a storage space under the basement stairs with lots of room to store wine. It had the perfect temperature (cool), humidity (slightly damp) and lighting (none). Of course when we moved we left our little "wine storage gem" behind and we now have to create a new one in our new home.

The new spot for our wine cellar is pictured. I deliberately left it looking like a mess (the rest of my home is organized--sort of) to show you that the perfect place for building wine storage racks and having a wine cellar might present itself as a diamond in the rough. Our future wine cellar is a large closet-like area in a spare room in our basement. Right now it's filled with Christmas decorations and has the nastiest wood paneling on the walls I've ever seen.

Despite its aesthetic drawbacks this little space does have what it takes to store wine. The room in which this closet resides is always cool, both in summer and winter, and the temperature doesn't fluctuate much as long as the door remains closed. Also, because the room is in the basement the humidity is usually higher than in the rest of the house, another key ingredient to the placement of your wine cellar. Light is another factor to consider when choosing where to build your wine storage racks. This entire room has no windows, so it's almost always dark. Eventually the entire room will be redecorated and used but lighting will still not be a problem as we can add a door or heavy curtain to keep the light out of this closet.

When scouting out a location to place your wine keep these three things in mind: a cool and consistent temperature of between 45 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, elevated humidity and darkness. Those are the essentials and should always come before aesthetics.

OK, that's stage one down-we have our location. Next we'll have to clean out and prep the area. Stay tuned for "the big clean up" AKA "Where the hell do I put my Christmas decorations and how do I rip down wooden paneling?" See you next time and happy wine-ing.

Look, not everyone gets a thrill out of working with wood and nails. Sometimes you just want to order it, receive it, assemble it (just a little) and admire it.

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So you've read the information and decided a building wine storage racks and having your own wine cellar is something you've just gotta do. But before building those racks and creating your own cellar you're going to want to know how to do it the right way...the first time. Don't waste your time and money (and wine!)by building your wine storage racks in the wrong place. To cut out the learning curve and avoid costly mistakes Click Here! and get your copy of How to Build Your Own Wine Cellar.