A homeowner asked me if I knew anyone who could build a wine cellar in the basement of brand new home. She’s really serious about her wine and has a major wine collection.
This is out of my league.
Does anyone know who does this sort of thing in the Chicago area?
Thanks.
Neal
Replies
Get a copy of "Wine Spectator" and look in the classifieds. You can order kits from a number of manufacturers. Hook up with the right one, and you can probably do the work for her.
There is a quite snobby but decent book on the matter that you can get from Amazon. It's called "How to Build a Wine Cellar". The author explains the ins and outs of various contruction techniques, wine storage requirements, etc. I found the book to be a good primer, though it would benefit a great deal from getting a update with modern insulation materials like in-situ applied insulation foams, for example.
What it comes down to is: heat gain! If the place can't get warm, you don't have to worry about AC and other artificial means of keeping it cool and the humidity where you want it. That's why traditional wine cellars were built either deep down into the ground or into the mountainsides. Far from the earths surface, the temperatures and humidity levels tend to stay in the ideal range for wine storage, year-round and with very little variation.
If going deep is not an option (and it rarely is), insulate the heck out of the space to minimize heat gain. Eliminate windows or cover them up with insulation from the inside (paint XPS black, for example). Install a wine chiller that can handle the load imposed by the room, but don't necessarily follow all the directions. Most wine chillers are sold on a per sq. foot basis, regardless of building techniques, we needed one ½ the size that was recommended.
As an alternative to a big chiller, look into the Wine Well, made by The Wine Well Co in Milford, CT. If you inquire with them speak to Jim Fisher and tell him Paul Berendsohn sent you...
Sorry, that won't do it. The Wine chiller may be an attractive solution for a package store to chill a wine enough to allow the customer to get home or out to picnic before it warms, but it's not a long-term wine cellar solution.The idea of a wine cellar is that all bottles are stored at the proper temperatures to allow them to age gracefully. Wine aficionados claim that a bottle that is kept too warm will quickly turn into vinegar and bottles whose temperatures fluctuate a lot will do the same. Mind you, this is really only an issue for those that collect wine and keep it for more than a year, which 95%+ of the population do not.
I overlooked that point of course... and to think I consider myself a oenophile ;)