I have a question related to seasonal temperature changes in a cellar. My cellar seems to go from about 8 degrees celsius (46F) in the final months of winter to about 18 degrees C (64F) at the end of summer (this last temperature was reached this year after an extreme heatwave in Europe, but I guess they will happen more and more often).
This change in temperature is very slowly over the course of a full year with months of constant temperature when seasons flow from one into the other.
I am bit worried about the rather big difference in min-max values, 10 degrees celsius difference between the two seems a lot, although the change happens gradually over a year. I am thinking about installing a heater to prevent the temperature dropping below say 11 degrees C or so to decrease the difference in min max.
Is this worth it? Or should I stop worrying? I guess it will always be better, but will it matter? I don’t seem to find any conclusive article online: most articles say keep it constant at 12 degrees C (54F), which has no practical meaning unless you have an airconditioned room or wine fridge.
Does any of you have a similar situation with a longer experience time? (my cellar us just recently built, so no experience on long term influence). Thanks for thoughts and suggestions!
Bart - if you search, there are a lot of threads on this. I have a passive cellar in New England in the US that has very similar temperature variation, and have had no issues with any premature aging - you should be fine.
Thank you Jud! Sorry I did not search in the existing threads here yet; point taken and I will certainly try to find additional comments that apply to my case as well. But it is good to hear that you don’t have issues with similar temperature ranges.
Like Jud, I live in New England with a very similar temperature variation, but I was more concerned with humidity as my basement would get down to 30% RH during the winter, and never get over 50% RH.
Hi Joe, RH is not a problem in my case, its rather stable around 72-75%. When temperatures outside are rising in spring, RH moves up sometimes to 80% or a little above that. I solve this by opening the cellar door in the evening for a few hours or so when temperature inside and outside the cellar are more or less equal. I was the most concerned with the the lowest temperatures in my case (7-8 degrees Celsius), as people told me that tartaric acid might deposit more easily in the bottles, particularly for white wine. But I have not read any complaints about this in other threads on this board. (a search which I did do in the mean time )
So I guess I should feel relaxed and consider the temperature variations not a problem at all.
As for addressing low RH, what you could try is put moist gravel on the cellar floor, or in some large plastic trays or so. The gravel is supposed to release the water when RH is too low and absorb it again when it’s too high. Or simply putting a bucket of water might already help as well. Of course a small humidifier will most certainly do the trick too. But I agree with you: when RH is never going above 50% it seems a concern for the corks.
I live in Alberta, Canada. My passive basement cellar fluctuates in temperature from 13 (55) to 18 (64) with most of time in 14-16. RH is between 25% in winter to 65% in summer and found no effect on cork.
The worst thing for wine is rapid fluctuations in temperature. I would not worry. I used to have a similar cellar but my 35 plus years experience in the industry tells me that.
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