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Wine Cellars and Wine Fridges server similar yet different purposes when storing wine. The Wine Cellar and Wine Fridge are both designed to maintain your wine at the perfect temperature. The Wine Cellar is a walk in room that can contain from hundreds to thousands of bottles of wine. The wines are all maintained at the same temperature within a wine cellar and depending on the design can accommodate boxes, cartons and beautifully displayed wines.  Wine fridges are designed to maintain wines at a specific temperature but for smaller numbers of bottles. The modern wine fridges are designed with split level temperature control to allow for the storage of both white and red wines at different temperatures within the same unit. This allows for the storage of Red Wines at the optimum temperature of 14-16 degrees while storing the white wine and Champagne in the same wine fridge at the optimum temperature of 6-8 degrees. Wine fridges can also be used to set the drinking temperature for wines to prepare the wine for optimum drinking. Full bodied red wines such as Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon should be served between 16 – 18 degrees, while lighter bodied reds like Pinot Noir should be served at a cooler 12-14 degrees. Aromatic whites such as Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris are best enjoyed when lightly chilled to 6-8 degrees. The split level wine fridge allows for this specific variant of temperature. 

The Wine Cellar can be located at any point within a house and can be both a feature of a property and a practical method of Wine Storage that allows your wine collection to mature, develop and increase in value. Although the wine fridge can be located almost anywhere in a property it should never be located within a wine cellar. The heat and vibration generated from the motor of the wine fridge will adversely impact on the optimum conditions within the wine cellar. 

Both the wine fridge and wine cellar have their place in the storage of fine wine. When used in combination they compliment each other, the fridge allowing for ease of access and precise temperature control while the wine cellar allows for bulk storage and can be a significant asset to a property. 

A custom built quality wine cellar will increase the value of your property. Like all good properties it is often the unique features that draw attention and make a property stand out from the crowd.  A Cellar with ample wine storage will provide a point of differentiation 

Sarah Case of R.T.Edgar Real Estate notes that the property at Torresdale Road, Toorak boasts a 400 bottle Cedar Wine Cellar Steel wine cellar Mt Eliza

A wine cellar come be accommodated in almost any space that you have available. This could be anything from a custom designed Walk-in Cellar room in a new home build, Underground or Under Floor Cellar Space, Basement or under Under Stairs Cellar, Walk-in Cellar Closet or even Crawl Space Cellar Storage. Some of the things to consider when designing and building your Cellar space are the following. 

Will you have an Insulated Cellar or will it be the ambient temperature of the space?

Will the space that you have chosen be affected by natural light on the bottles or will it be an isolated and light controlled Cellar space?

How many bottles of wine do you plan on storing in the space?

Will the space be only used as a Cellar or will it also be a show piece Cellar for your house?

What material will you construct your wine rack from, Timber Wine Racks, Metal Wine Racks or Acrylic Racks?

What lighting would best suit the Cellar space, Spot lights, LED lights or distributed lighting?

Due to the structure of white wine, many will not age well past few a years, in fact they may start to spoil. While most white wines won’t last for decades, there are a few that will improve with age. When cellaring white wine yourself, you’ll need to know which varietals are have the makeup to last, and which you’re better off enjoying now.

Just as with red wine, specific white wines are worth the effort of cellaring to allow them to mature and improve in taste as they age. For instance, Pinot Gris typically tastes better in its youth than it does as it gets older. Other wines in should be enjoyed while young include almost all Prosecco and Cava, most Moscato, and most Viognier. In addition, some white wines aren’t specifically designed for aging, such as mass-produced Sauvignon Blanc or Chenin Blanc, these will spoil in a cellar if kept longer than about two years. Nearly all white wine can be drunk young without ruining the experience, only a handful will truly reveal themselves in their old age. This includes  Vintage Champagne, the high acid levels will mature over time and settle the tastes. Riesling makes a strong case for offering the most dynamic and interesting evolution with time. Thanks to its bright acidity, a quality dry version can rest easy for 10-20 years or more, while a semi-dry or sweet Riesling can easily push 20-30+ years, this also applies to a quality Semillon of White Burgundy. The Varitial and composition of your white wine will determine the duration of cellar time to bring out its best.

Although Red Cedar, Oak and Pine are beautiful materials to store wine in racks there are many other ways to store wine. The traditional cellars were often constructed from clay and the internal clay materials was removed and baked in to hexagon shapes to create pigeon holes for wine storage. For the budget conscious wine collector strong commercial shelving can be utilised to allow for the safe and accessible storage of wine, although this is rudiment it can be an effective short term solution for wine storage. Timber wine cases also provide a suitable temporary wine storage solution for your wine cellar. Custom designed wine racking will always provide a cellar to envy.

The Stelvin screwcap bottle system is best layed down as the bottle cap has an oxygen permeable membrane. The porous barrier of the screwcap acts as a cork does and allows for a minute transfer of gasses. The degree of permeability of the cap depends on the manufacturer.  Grégory Patriat, Jean-Claude Boisset’s winemaker, who bottles under natural cork and screwcap, prefers to store screwcapped bottles lying down in order to have a good exchange between liquid and the air through the seal. Wine that is to be drunk within a short time frame, such as 12 months, will not benefit significantly from storage either vertically or horizontally. If your wine is to be cellared for a longer period then lying down is preferable. 

There are a number of factors to be considered when storing wine. A constant stable temperature in a Climate controlled Wine Cellar is the idea environment for wine storage. There should not be any direct sunlight or UV light directly onto the wine bottles and this will adversely affect the wine. The bottles should be stored on there sides to prevent the drying out of the cork and the cellar space where they are stored should be kept at humidity around 70%. As important as the storing of your wine in appropriate conditions the wine should be adjusted to temperature before serving.

There is an ideal range rather than a best temperature to store your Wine. Red Wine should be stored between 14 degrees and 16 degrees celsius. By increasing or decreasing the temperature outside of this range the rate of wine maturity will increase and decrease accordingly. Also important to the storage of your wine is the humidity and light conditions of your cellar. Although the humidity of cities such as Melbourne (The average annual relative humidity is 55.8% and average monthly relative humidity ranges from 48% in January to 67% in June) some cities experience more extreme humidity ranges. A temperature and moisture stable dark cellar will allow your wine to mature and be enjoyed to its fullest. 

There are a number of factors that determine the suitability of wine for aging. As a collector the first and best place to determine this suitability is from the Vineyard that produced the wine and the indications on the label.  There are four principles characteristics that vinyards will consider to determine if a wine should be cellared prior to be consumed. A wine that ages well for 10-15 years will not have had a chance to develop in the first few years and so will not have the same depth of character immediately after production. The four traits that wine producers look for in an age-worthy wine are acidity level, tannin structure, alcohol percentage and residual sugar.

When storing your wine there are a number of factors to consider. Is the wine being stored to drink in the near future or to store for the purpose of collecting? The optimum rage of red wine storage is between 14 degrees and 16 degrees celsius. As the temperature of wine storage increase so does the rate of maturation of the wine and the chemical reactions that cause the change in stored wine. So if you plan on drinking your wine within 5 years than a slightly higher temperature is appropriate while if you plan on keeping your wine well into the future then a lower temperature will suit your storage conditions.