So we’re building a cellar in our new home, and for those of you who’ve built a cellar, what would you have done differently if you had to do it all over again?
Thanks!
Build bigger.
Slightly over-engineer the cooling.
Secret entrance and secret areas within the cellar.
Make everything two bottles deep.
Aton’s advice is a good place to start. All great advice.
I’ll add:
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Unless your budget is generous, spend more on cooling, insulation, vapor barrier, etc. than on cosmetics.
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Agree, as big as you can.
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Bulk storage and odd sized, over sized racking.
If you buy magnums you will definitely want some way to rack the oversize ones. For me I’ve had a problem with champagne and Patty Green mags. IIRC you are down in GA, so what the other posters said about cooling etc.
He is actually in Richmond. Dale’s advice pretty much nails it. The only advice I have is to invite me over when it is finished.
Richmond? That’s almost GA. Only two-and-a-half states away!
Well, I just put in my second cellar in my house (decommisioned the first one) so i actually have been able to implement some of the things I learned I wished I had done. This time I excavated so the cellar is several feet below the basement floor (and back yard) level and on the north side - the first one was on the south side of my basement altho well below grade. (I bumped out the sunroom on back of house and formerly there was just unfinished crawl space, which my architect said I had to get rid of so of course I had to build a new wine cellar!) This one is much bigger of course although i managed to stash about 2400 btls in the first one and i don’t own more now than i did at peak before. I had a lot of double deep single bottle racking before and retained that feature but got rid of the diamond bins as they are really only good for bordeaux shaped bottles and i don’t own all that much of that. I did include mag and oversized champagne racking (and now find myself buying bubbly which I didn’t do much before so maybe that’s bad). But more importantly I put in a lot dedicated half bottle racking as I buy a lot and using slots for regularly sized bottles was a waste of real estate. Much better cooling of course - cellar pro split system so much better than a whisperkool.
For flooring i used the same wood flooring also in most of the basement (supposedly engineered wood stained the same color as the new wood flooring in rest of house but i swear it looks as good as the more expensive floors upstairs). I have shelving for boxes of glasses and decanters. I have a table in the middle that is racking underneath and is on casters (it covers a trap door that provides access to sump pump). This time because it was all new construction it is really really well-insulated (sprayed closed cell foam). Oh, and i made sure to put electrical outlets in there.
There may be more but that is what occurs to me. Really glad to have split system, dedicated small and oversized racking, and a true subterranean cellar.
Got a silly question.
If youve got fat hands, in standard double deep going to be hard to reach back bottle ?
I have a subterranean cellar that occupies 25% of the basement, separated by a wall of 130 sq ft of glass panels. I used double pane argon filled panels, but should have used triple pane as I know there is cooling loss to the basement dining/entertainment area and it would not have added much to the cost. Basement feels nice 9 months/year but a bit cool in winter for some guests. Never a problem for those drinking red wine though.
Double deep racking for sure! Use the space, I rarely, if ever, drink in the cellar, so cut the “show” space for useful storage space. Agreed on room for Mags and if you buy a lot of 1/2 bottle think about that as well. Have fun!
Practice reaching to the back wall of an empty single deep and see how it feels.
My advice is this. Go cheap on building the cellar. Don’t make it fancy. It is just storage. Buy better wine instead. A cellar can be built super cheap if you are willing to do it yourself. Its just some 2x4s, insulation, a cheap old door, some inexpensive racking, and a good cellar cooling unit.
Were I too build it again, I would change the shape, I think a longer, skinnier cellar works better than a square-ish cellar for storing. More efficient.
I agree with that. You don’t eat in your fridge, why drink in your cellar? Dispense with cosmetics. And long skinny is more efficient than square IMO.
Put in sufficient lighting that you can see the lowest shelves. Give yourself room for big fat bottles like some Beaujolais, Turleys, etc. Also give yourself some spaces for skinny ones - halfs and some of the German and Italian long, skinny types.
Bulk storage bins are OK but if you have the space, go with individual slots. Especially when stacking wide-bottom bottles, they’re just not that handy.
And I wouldn’t go two deep - it’s a pain to see what’s back there. But again, do what you can in the space you have. I don’t know if the secret stash place was in jest or not, but I wouldn’t do that. It’s your cellar, who would you be keeping secrets from?
You can use unfinished wood but it will stain. Maybe not from wine, but from handling over time, so you may want to put some coating on it. Then you don’t have to worry so much about mold either.
I wouldn’t do much to the floor. If you drop a bottle it will break on concrete but how many bottles have you ever dropped? I have yet to drop one.
I guess part of the question is whether you are building a storage bin or a part of your home.
Start with that and go from there!
Do what will give you the greatest net pleasure.
I wish I had gone bigger and more whimsical!
I agree about concrete. Unless you need to insulate the floor, concrete is great. We had ours stained and it looks ‘cellary’!
Agree with the function over form crowd if you are working with a constrained space. However there are some cool cosmetic things you can do without sacrificing space and at reasonable/low budget. For example I finished the walls on the outside of the cellar with a collage of sides and ends from wooden wine boxes- The only trick was collecting enough boxes. The inside of my cellar is all re-claimed tongue and groove wood paneling- I was ripping it out of my basement at the time and it came in super handy. I am sure similar things can be done by going to a local building material reuse/recycle place.
I would not have devoted any space to wood case storage.shelves. As it turns out, I do not buy Bordeaux and do not buy case lots of Burgundy. And it was a waste of space when balancing Burgundy bottles in there, and a bit tippy. I tore it out and had it replaced with double deep storage and am much happier.
I had a dirt floor in my passive/underground cellar, I laid in 4 inches of sand, then green treated board and then bought a cheap linoleum roll for less than $10. It looks like marble in the low light and has a soft feel in case I drop bottles.
No matter your best attempts to prevent it, your cooling system will conk out at some point — usually during a heat wave. You will panic and ask for desperate advice on this board.
You will get it figured out but will be stressed for 72 hours about the idea you are irretrievably damaging all the wine you’ve obsessively been collecting.
You will wonder why did I build this thing in the first place.
Seriously: don’t panic when things go wrong. Systems will be fixed and it’s highly unlikely your wines will be damaged by short term failures.
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Great advice Matthew!!