Build A Wine Closet At Home

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.

Before you start your wine cellar construction it is important to pay attention to the position of the cupboard in relation to the rest of the house.

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. Ideally, choose an internal closet where your wine will be able to be stored at a more constant temperature.

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 shouldn’t be a cause for concern. A similar change each day will harm your wines by ageing them too rapidly.

The most important rule when storing wine is to avoid large temperature changes or fluctuations. You’ll notice damage of this type immediately from the stickiness that will often form around the capsule. Over a period of time the continual contraction and expansion of the wine will damage the integrity of the cork. It’s like having the cork pulled in and out again 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. Your wine will be ruined once air comes in contact with your wine and the irreversible process of oxidation begins.

At 55º to 58ºF the wine will age as intended, enabling it to fully develop. Higher temperatures will age wine more rapidly and cooler temperatures will slow the ageing process. Irreversible damage will be done if your wine is kept at a temperature above 82ºF for even a month.

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 have 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.

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