A Wine Cellar In A Closet

When you are passionate about wine you begin collecting it … and when you begin collecting it you need a place to store it.

A closet can easily be turned into a mini wine cellar to store your growing wine collection.

Consider the position of the cupboard or closet in relation to the outside walls of the house before you construct your wine cellar.

Avoid converting a closet situated against an outside wall into a mini wine cellar. The outer walls of your home can often be subjected to wide temperature fluctuations across the seasons. Select an internal closet where your wine can be stored in a stable atmosphere.

The degree and the speed of the temperature change are critical to successfully storing and aging wine. A gradual change of a few degrees between summer and winter won't matter. The same change each day will harm your wines by ageing them too rapidly.

The major rule when in wine storage is to avoid wide fluctuations in temperature. You'll notice damage of this type immediately from the stickiness that will often form around the capsule. Over time the continual expansion and contraction of the wine will damage the integrity of the cork. It's just like having the cork removed and replaced every day. When this happens, minute quantities of wine may be pushed out along the edge of the cork (between the cork and the bottle neck) allowing air to seep back in. Once air comes in contact with your wine the irreversible process of oxidation will begin and your wine will be ruined.

At 55º to 58ºF the wine will age gracefully, enabling it to fully develop as the winemaker intended. Higher temperatures will age wine more rapidly and cooler temperatures will slow down the ageing process. Irreversible damage will occur if your wine is stored at a temperature above 82ºF for a month or more.

The most difficult part of creating a wine cellar in a closet can be finding other places to store the original contents of the closet! Don't worry about being ruthless ... get rid of all the present contents (one way or another) and start with a blank slate!

Cheap wine racks can be purchased from a hardware store, online retailer or storage shop and you'll have a simple but very effective mini wine cellar.

Wine rack designs will vary in bottle density; price variations are more to do with aesthetics than efficiency.

Individual racking is usually considered the most convenient way of storing bottles. If you place racks against only one wall of the closet you may still have floor or shelf space available for wines that you purchase by the case.