Conditions For Your Home Wine Cellar

Wine cellars fall under a couple of main types. There is the industrial size wine cellar as used by restaurants and wine merchants, and there is the home wine cellar generally built by a wine aficionado or wine buff to hold their own collection of wine. Let us look at wine cellars for use at home. Many people mistakenly think of wine cellars and wine fridges in the same way. The reality is, generally, a wine cellar is substantially larger than a refrigerated wine cooler and of much broader storage capacity and can generally incorporate a cooling unit and storage spaces designed for keeping and serving wines. Both styles of wine cellar tend to be handled in the same way.

Right Temperature To Store Wine

The management of a wine cellar should first be aware of the temperature range required for keeping and also aging wines. For long-term wine storage it has been generally acknowledged that a temperature of 50 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit is essential to provide ideal storage.

Humidity

Humidity plays an important role in wine storage. A dry environment will quickly shrink a cork seal. An all natural cork is compressed and forced in to the bottle to produce a 100% natural closure.

Low humidity will shrink the cork, which will allow air in to the bottle causing oxidation of the wine. Low humidity or perhaps a substandard cork may also lead to wine escaping from the bottle creating ullage. Screw capped bottles don’t require humidity when being stored.

Too much humidity will not cause harm to the wine but can certainly lead to mold growing on the labels. An ideal level of humidity for your wine storage is 70%, however somewhere between say 50% – 80% is usually reasonable. In some geographic regions these temperatures may be found in underground cellars and caves. If you are not in such a part of the world then you will want to invest in some kind of cooling unit to maintain the temperature.

Proper storing of your wines translates to a better flavor in the wine glass, and it is consequently particularly beneficial that you don’t use anything but the very best and most successful techniques of storage in regards to storing your wine collection. Where a properly constructed wine cellar is impractical for a wine lover the most effective wine storage option would be a refrigerated wine cabinet, and there are plenty of brands from which to choose, making sure that regardless of the specific style of wines that you own or even the number of wine bottles you’ll want to store you will be able to uncover the perfect wine cellar solution.