Are you a wine lover and you want to create your collection?
To create your wine collection and keep your bottles in the best condition, protected from temperature and humidity swings and other external influences you might need a dedicated space with a controlled environment but if you do not have an appropriate separate room, it doesn’t mean that you have to give up your passion for wine, nor the idea of installing wine storage at your home.
Design options are limitless, You can store the wine you have collected in any part of the house: in a room, cellar, closet, or even into the wall.
However, displaying your wine storage effectively requires not only technical knowledge but also a design background.
To help you understand the process and gather the preliminary information to design your dream home wine storage you might follow these steps:
1. Defining your goals
Before designing your wine storage it’s important to define its functions.
What do you want your wine storage to serve?
- Long-term storage for rare or expensive vintage wines. Here, you will need a humid and cool space like a basement.
- A display piece, designed purely to show off some cool bottles. Here, it’s a matter of finding a suitably showy location, whether that’s a room or a wall in an entertaining area of your home.
- It can be a combination of the two options. If you want a display piece and functional long-term storage, consider a nice showy location that will allow your bottles to age properly.
2. choose the type of cellar and define your budget
Before creating the space, you’ll want to ensure you have a reasonable budget understanding. The type of wine storage can define approximately your budget.
There are three different types: passive cellars, conditioned cellars and smart cellars.
- The passive wine storage has no automated climate control. It works for short-term storage. This type of display requires more consideration for the location, avoiding rooms with temperature fluctuations and keeping away from direct sunlight and sources of extra heat. You can choose an area like a subterranean room that has natural humidity and constant temperature. This type of storage comes with a lower price point.
- The conditioned cellar is an active-cooled wine cellar with an automated climate-control system that maintains the temperature, humidity and other factors. The goal is to get the temperature between 7-18 degrees celsius (45-65 degrees Fahrenheit) and the humidity around 70%. Investing in the right cooling unit will save you money in the long term. This type of display is ideal for long-term storage to get good ageing of wine and it requires a specialist.
- A Smart cellar is a brain for your wine cellar. It provides inventory automation by optimising your storage capacity and bottle environment history (Bottle Data). Also, it provides control with connected sensors and devices that will detect environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity, light intensity, vibration… and many other personalized features.
3. Location and size
You’ve already decided that your display is for show or storage (or both), and whether you need to add a cooling system. Now it’s time to decide where to place your wine storage and the scale of the project. Be sure it’s in a cool place away from direct sunlight otherwise, you need to compensate by adding a cooling system, tempered glass with enhanced UV protection, and other components to help.
Be sure to consider the size. Are you trying to fit 100 bottles, or 1,000? And do you need room to grow?
4. Define The Style
People think most of the time about aesthetics when we talk about wine cellar design.
Wine cellar design can be modern, classic, or contemporary. The style you choose will determine the materials you will use.
Here are some examples:
- Modern cellars will lean on glass, metal, ceramic and concrete style materials.
- Classic cellars will focus on natural materials like genuine woods and marble
- Contemporary cellars might take a mix of both.
5. The Wine Cellar Lighting Setup
The lighting setup in a wine cellar has an enormous impact on the aesthetic value of the room. It is important to keep in mind that improper lighting can cause adverse effects on your wine. Do not use lighting systems that produce ultraviolet light and heat, which can alter the temperature and humidity balance in your cellar. Make sure that you only use low voltage or LED lights for your storage space. These kinds of lights produce minimal heat, and they do not emit UV rays.
6. Choose Your Flooring Material
There are many options for wine cellar flooring but Never use carpet because the humid conditions inside the storage can cause mould growth in the carpet fibres. There are many kinds of materials used for wine room floors. It is important to use a type of flooring material that is highly durable against accidental wine spills and can adequately match the style you choose it can be Ceramic grey, Barrel wood, stones…
7. Consider Wall and ceiling Treatments
You need to cover the wall with insulating material including the ceiling to avoid warm air travelling through the wall, thus preventing condensation. When this happens you get condensation, which can cause issues with mould and mildew.
There are many types of isolation? You can use fibreglass bats, rigid foam or blown-in insulation. There ought to be a minimum of R-19 in the walls, and R-30 in the ceiling. The R-value is an insulation designation. Basically, the higher the R-value the better the insulation.
8. Decorative elements
The next step of styling your wine cellars comes with the finishing touches. Decorative elements can add an extra pop of personalization. For example, you could add furniture to your wine room, such as some chairs and tasting tables, adding a level of interactivity. If you’re a cigar enthusiast, you can include a humidor in your wine room.
Consider adding a few of your favourite art pieces to your cellar for a sense of additional refinement and class.
The most important thing about your wine cellar is that it’s yours, a domain that you have complete control over. With a little creative flair, you can mould it to something truly individual and one-of-a-kind.
How can a wine cellar contractor help?
Wine cellar builders can help you design, build, and maintain cellars for domestic or commercial spaces. They are skilled in designing and building wine cellars and have a thorough knowledge of wines and their storage conditions.
Our design services will help you to:
- Identify the best cellar location
- Identify the right cellar size and configuration based on the size and type of wines you own and your property size and layout.
- Use materials that complement those used in the rest of your house or commercial space. Contact us to get more information about our custom Wine Cellars service. We will do our best to provide you with all the useful technical information and recommend the products that meet your specific requirements.