Cigars in Wine Cellar

I am planning on building a wine cellar. I have too many bottles for my current set up.

The room will be 24 X 10.

I am toying with the idea of also making it a smoking room where I can smoke cigars. It will be well insulated (so it will keep the smell out of the rest of the house) and I would install a high end exhaust fan to remove smoke from the room. BUT, I have a few other questions:

  1. Will the residual smell smoke negatively affect the wine?
  2. Will the exhaust fan cause too much change in temp/humidity?

I don’t plan to smoke in it very often (1 time per month), but just thought it would be a cool addition to the cellar.

Thoughts?

Don’t. While the smoke will not affect the wine, what is the purpose of smoking in a cold indoor space? Where is the pleasure in that? At least 6-8 months of the year, you can smoke on your deck or in your backyard and have the temp be warmer than your cellar.

Installing a high air flow fan (which increases the buildout cost) will be venting cool air out, and sucking warmer air in, which then requires more cooling. While it won’t probably increase your electric bill that much, it isn’t energy efficient, and just doesn’t make sense to me.

Thanks. Kind of what i thought, but needed someone else to tell me. The thought of smoking cigars in a good looking wine cellar appealed to me, but quite frankly I didn’t think of smoking in 56 degrees.

Do a wall of glass and smoke outside looking in.

This is not a Cellar Rats thread - should be in Wine Talk, actually - even though it’s about a ‘cellar’, I’m moving it

You can certainly store cigars in your wine cellar, just not smoke them.

But now you can actually justify an awesome bespoke smoking jacket!

55 is too cold for cigars. Humidity is harder to control at this lower temperature. Also, 70% RH at 55 degrees is not the same as 70% RH at 70 degrees, you’d have to do some math to find an equal humidity ratio, or absolute humidity (don’t ask me to do it, lol). I think humidity swings are lower temperatures are more violent, as well. Even my desktop humidor’s RH can move +/- 3% RH with a 1 degree temperature change.

But, that really only applies if you are storing cigars for years with the intention of them benefiting from aging.

55 is way to cold for cigars, perfect conditions are 68/68 for long term and 65-75/65-75 for short term’

If the cigars are too cold they will not age correctly and become dry and eventually brittle and acrid

I agree. Normal room temperature is fine for maturing cigar-tobacco. Too much heat and moist, will provoke natural molds to grow. RH at 68-70%, at 68-70F, and the cigars are happy.

Cigars and wine-cellars are not friends at all !
If smoked there, -tar will darken the labels, and smells will stay in the wood/cardboard/bottles.
And the cigars, if stored there, will evolve wrongly, and take in some smells from the wood/cardboard, and some cellar-smells maybe ?

Here My humble table humidor.(Does the job just fine.) Pics from today.
Little humidor.jpg
R-H 70%.jpg
-Soren

Soren- Nice pics. Here’s a question I have had for awhile with my humidor. Do you think you should take the cigars out of the metal tubes for them to have the full benefit of being humidified?

Some diff. opinions.
Some (the cigar-cooler-sellers) say unwrap everything , to get max. effect from the cooled air… hmm.

The cellophane is permeable, and alu-tubes are not true airtight, so I leave all the wrappings on, if any.
It protects from physical damage, and to some degree the cross of flavors.

The main result of matured tobacco is a milder more round flavor. And the Havanas are from start, the mildest of them all. Therefore easier to enjoy an aged 15-30y Cubana, than a fresh Dominican.

I almost feel like a Montechristo No.2, and I think I will light one up, right now.
A glass of aged Haut Brion ('66, '82, '86) is a great companion, after the dinner. (Sadly not today…)

Best regards, Soren.

This to me makes more sense (other than sitting out on the porch).

While you have things torn up for the build, install a good exhaust fan outside the cellar, and put a couple chairs there. If you really want to do it up, install an inline fan so that the sound is somewhat isolated.

I like the wall of glass idea, but I am already going to over budget so I don’t think that will work.

I will just smoke the cigars in nice weather out by the cabana.

This did bring up another question - do people drink wine in their cellars?

I have seen pictures of several cellars with a nice table and chairs, and assumed they were for opening and then drinking wine. But, isn’t it too cool in there to really enjoy the wine?

Some people like the cold but not for long. A tasting might be appropriate, but having your friends over for an hour of wine will wind up with friends arriving in long johns or coats or just not show up. Acoustics can also be an issue.

Sure, I do. I like 65˚ and below. Hell, I rarely wear even a light jacket until the dead of winter. It’s too cold for my Pacific Island wife in the cellar so she rarely comes down there let alone joins me for a glass.

[sarcasm]
What a pity that I’m left in solitude, where I can sit in silence and drink wine peacefully and quietly amongst all those bottles.
[/sarcasm]

Good point Dennis…now I am not concerned about the temp, but I am worried that I will need a bed in the cellar!

Just read this thread - Haut Brion and Montechristo are an amazing pair (especially the '66, my favourite and such an underrated HB vintage). Though must say that the HB '67 I had recently (still in fantastic(!) shape after being kept since release in a cold English cellar - bought at auction for a steal because of the poor lables and ‘inferior’ vintage (got to love the poor lable bargain)) with a Parthagas Series P no. 2 was not a bad match either…

E

Interesting thought…

I like the idea of a glass wall with a smoking room outside (with the fan installed there?). Then you could enjoy a good smoke while looking at your bottles without worrying about the consequences.

Honestly, I’ve never understood why one should have a tasting table with chairs inside the wine cellar. Beside the fact that I (and for sure 100% of the female guests) start to feel uncomfortable after a while at 55° (12° C) and high humidity I see the main problem that a glass/bottle of red wine will never reach the right drinking temperatur because it will of course remain at cellar temp when inside the cellar…and 55°/12°C is without question way to cold for a red wine.

So, why to have a table with chairs there unless you only consume Champagne or white wine?