I currently have my storage in our fully underground, unfinished basement, It’s not quite 55, but the temperature is pretty consistent at around 61-63 year round.
I mentioned this in the other thread here about getting started, but we got “serious” about wine about 3 years ago, and even in the last 18 months our collection has gone from say 250 to now over 500, and of course in that time our average bottle price has creeped up. We don’t have any 1st growths, etc, but we do have plenty of $100-150+ bottles in the collection, and many across all price points we intend on keeping for quite some time.
So as the $ investment in my collection starts to grow, I’m wondering whether I need to think about investing in an active system. We don’t intend on finishing the basement any time soon, and even when we do I’m a little hesitant to make a huge investment in a “good” cold room because I don’t know that we’ll be here super-long-term and I’m pretty sure we’d never see any return at all on the investment.
I guess this is just a long-winded way to get to the question of whether my consistent, but slightly warmer current solution, is sufficient, or whether I should invest in active system. And then, in that sense, what other considerations, like generators, refrigerator vs. room, etc do I need to keep in mind? I’m actually afraid I might have trouble getting a large fridge system in the basement, but then at least if we do end up moving I can take it with me.
I’d recommend partitioning off the coolest corner of the basement and insulate it well.
55 degrees may be ideal, but not critical to maintain year round. I’ve kept wine in a passive cellar
for more than 30 years, and it seems to show as well as similar wines that have been kept in controlled storage
the entire time.
There are lots of threads on this board about ways to properly install insulation and vapor barriers. Just use the search function.
What the fluctuation from deep winter to high summer? What’s the warmest it gets and for how long?
Are the wines to drink or resell?
If the temps generally stayed in the high 50s-low60s never getting above 65 and dipping into the mid-low 50s in winter then I would bet that you could easily do what Peter suggests. IF the temps dont get much lower than the low 60s and creep up to the upper 60s for several months per year, I’d be inclined to actively cool. HOWEVAH… if you did what Peter suggests you could put a window AC unit in one insulated wall (venting into the larger basement area) and use that as emergency “OMG it’s hot!” backup in case things started to go much above the mid-60s in the summer.
It’s very consistent, in that range, both day to day and season to season. I have a couple of thermometers and most are on the top end of the racks (where it’s hottest) and never above 64 at the hottest, year round.
Planned on drinking, but given the size of our growing cellar, we’re opening up to the idea that we may one day have to sell things.
I’m definitely going to do some research on what Peter suggested. I’m not that handy myself, but I can be enterprising … or pay people to be enterprising for me
Yeah if you’re around 62 you would probably see that drop a few degrees if you isolated a section that was up against outside underground walls inside of insulated walls.
One word of advice on collecting… don’t buy too much stuff just because you loved one bottle and don’t age stuff without trying some older examples. There’s a lot of good wine out there and one of the most common mistakes are really liking a few bottles of something and buying cases of it and similar wines. ANother is assuming that because you like something young you’ll like it better old. You might… but buy some well stored older examples and see before you invest thousands of dollars an 15 years only to find out that you really only like that wine young.
So, looking at my temps down there right now, it’s about 63 on one wall and 62 on the other. Always consistent though - I have ones that have the daily high/low and it never moves more than a degree or two, and this is day to day and year round. Plus in the summer, I open the vent a little in the basement for a little of the air.
For what it’s worth, there are very few wines we have more than a couple of. As for the older wines - I did exactly that over the past two years. Since I didn’t have any experience with older wines (obviously), I bought a case or two from Benchmark and a couple of other shops with a mix of various types. A couple of bad bottles in the lot, which was worth the price of instruction. We do like a lot of characteristics of older reds, but less so on the sort of oxidized & smoky elements that older whites take on.
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I built a passive cellar (about the size of a walk in closet) 5 or so years ago. Costs me very little and used the Richard Gold book (How and Why to Build a Wine Cellar). I built the room in an existing corner with two exterior walls, bought, hung and insulated an exterior door, super-insulated the ceilings and walls, for about $700. I found used redwood racks on Craigslist $50 that needed only a few minor cuts to install on three walls (two sides are diamond racks floor to ceiling, back wall is indvidual bottles (burgundy size) halfway up and case storage above that. Holds about 700 bottles. I keep my inventory around 300, which means I’ve had to cut back to buying about the number of bottles per year that I consume.
I live in the Denver area where our summer daytime temps can get to mid 90’s for a month or so at a time, although the nights are cool, much cooler than Pittsburgh I would think as we have no humidity. My temps vary from about 56-57 in winter to about 65 for perhaps a few weeks in the summer. I have done a lot of research on this variation and I’m quite comfortable with 20+ years storage. Keeping the humidity up is a bigger concern (in either passive or active cellars - in this climate).
I have witnessed poorly done passive cellars (don’t waste your time) and I’ve witnessed cooler units that have gone beserk. A neighbor returned from 4 weeks away to find his wine near freezing, covered in frost, many labels ended up moldy or damaged by moisture. The unit went nuts. The unit was new out of the box 18 months earlier, but had been in the box for 5 or so years. Out of warranty of course.
My advice: Build a very well designed passively cooled cellar in your basement. Put in the provisions (i.e. frame in and pre-wire an outlet) to put in a suitably sized cooler unit, in case your passive design doesn’t work so well where you live. Go passive until you find out you can’t. Even if it turns out you need a cooler, the unit will run much less frequently and the room’s humidity should remain more constant if you build the cellar as if it would be passive.
Now is the time to do it, well before you finish the rest of the basement. Read the book.
Another option for your situation is to buy a wine refrigerator you can take with you. Put the longer-term and more valuable bottles in that, and keep the rest that you’ll drink sooner in the current manner. 61-63 isn’t going to hurt anything too much in a few years.
You’re fine as is. I’ve been collecting for 35 years, mostly good Burgundy and Bordeaux, and the only problem with my 58-68F passive cellar is that the wines do not age fast enough!! Even 68 for a couple months of the year doesn’t seem to matter. Parker has said that 70 becomes the “too warm” point. Keep the expensive stuff near the floor, where it is likely to be 2 or 3 degrees cooler than at eye level. In my case, 68 is at eye level in late July/August. I like my wines with 20 - 30 years of age on them, and my cellar conditions don’t seem to be a problem…
