Cellar Fundamentals

Breaking down the fundamentals of building a home wine cellar and turning it into a collector's edition

by Lynda Sea

Buying good wine and not storing it properly is like making a gourmet meal and letting the food go bad. Taking care now can reap rewards later. A cellar can be anything from a space in the basement, a hallway closet or a dedicated room on your main floor - not just the dusty French château cave-like cellar with cobwebs and candlelight conjured up in most people's minds. Having your own collection of reds, whites and bubblies that gets better with age requires proper preparation from the get-go, so whether you're building it yourself or hiring pros to handle the design, here's what you need to know about crafting the consummate cellar.  

Location
Choosing the site is the most critical decision in the building process. While basements have always been a natural choice because they're dark and more isolated, main-floor cellars are gaining popularity for the display aspect. "Wine cellars don't have to be built into the basement only, anymore," says Billy Carpenter of Vin de Garde Cellar Systems in Vancouver. "They can be anywhere you like, as long as the envelope - the room - for the wine cellar is built correctly." Avoid situating any cellar near high-traffic areas and movement such as stairs, a laundry room or home theatre, as any vibrations will massage and prematurely age the wines. Keep away from exterior walls and windows to minimize fluctuations in heat and light.   

Size
Cellar size is often determined by a necessity to maximize capacity in the smallest amount of space. "Most people err on the side of caution when they build a cellar but they have to keep in mind it's a fixed envelope, they can't expand it," says Tony Aspler, former Toronto Star wine columnist and author of Tony Aspler's Cellar Book.
His general rule of thumb for size is to determine how many bottles you want to store, then doubling that figure for total capacity. The key is to build in potential for growth as you expand your wine collection.
While cellar sizes are largely dependant on the purpose of the cellar, the average size for a basement cellar is around six by eight feet, which typically holds about 1,000 bottles, says Arnel Marchand, owner of Koolspace, a cellar construction and management service in Calgary.
 

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