I live in Dallas and currently have about 400 bottles. I would love to decrease that number, but my desire to stash bottles to hit proper drinking windows doesn’t make that a realistic option. I currently have a 166 bottle fridge that I can probably get 110 bottles in. I use it all for reds. Keep sparkline and whites in a spare fridge in the garage. Currently storing the remainder in an open air cabinet and under the stairs. This year I ran out of room to store the really good bottles in the fridge. I currently have a few options: 1) buy another big fridge, 2) convert a closet to a proper storage area or 3) go to offsite storage. I suspect some of you have found yourself in the same situation. Curious to know your thoughts. Thanks in advance.
Andrew, you may already be aware, but Classic Wine Storage in the Dallas area is a great option. I live in Fort Worth and use their location there and absolutely love it. Prices are competitive, but just as important is what you also get with storing there…the free tastings. Lots of big names (and not so big names) visit throughout the year.
I second the vote for Classic. First rate operation run by very serious and trustworthy lifetime professionals in the industry. Ownership of the highest integrity. As Shay says, the pricing is also very favorable. In the past year they have gotten very active about bringing in winemakers from around the world to do tastings and special offerings.
The only catch is that there is a waiting list to get in. If you want to consider the option, I would suggest getting on the waiting list now so that you are in line when a locker comes available in a few months. You can always decline to take it and either leave the wait list or stay on it for future openings.
I have a strong preference for on-site storage. There’s a thread here somewhere on that.
If you plan on staying in the home a long time, converting existing space to a walk-in cellar with excess capacity is logistically and ergonomically superior to additional wine fridges.
Third vote for Classic Wine Storage. I use their new state-of-the-art location in Southlake which they recently opened. First class people and operation.
I was in a very similar situation not too long ago, and my answer would be 2 and 3. Classic is great, but even great offsites become a pain if you’re going there frequently, so my strong preference would be to upsize your proper storage at home as well.
I don’t know how much wine you could properly store between your wine fridge and the renovated closet, or your consumption patterns/preferences so YMMV. Best of luck.
I think a combination of on and offsite can work well. Just toss stuff you won’t regularly access in the offsite.
+1 for this approach. When moving into a locker I organized into Weinboxes so I could track locations on CellarTracker and pull bottles easier. Found a few cases I long forgot about in the back of the closet when moving into a locker so that was an added bonus.
on and off site for sure. if you are trying to age a bunch of stuff, then offsite is for you, especially if you are buying current vintages. Keep the stuff at home that you may drink in the next year or two, and move all the rest to offsite to rest peacefully. I keep only 20 bottles of red at home, max, at any point in time (not counting the cheap stuff I crack open on Tues nights). I go to offsite every 2nd or 3rd week to replenish, and to take delivery of stuff I ordered and shipped to the facility.
I agree with David. There’s nothing like having all your wine at home. And if you’re staying in the house for a while, it’s really not that hard to convert a space. No idea how handy you are, but if you hire someone it’s expensive. If you DIY, you can do it more cheaply than any other option. Alternatively you can look to pick up an extra fridge on eBay or somewhere and save a few bucks. But if that’s not an option, go to on and offsite.
And there have been numerous threads on this subject over the years.
There is a fourth option: drink the bottles as fast as they arrive. ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
I went with offsite storage because of the need to store bottles for the long term until they get to their proper drinking window. This has the added benefit of keeping them away from me so I don’t jump the gun. Then I keep my home storage for wines that can be drunk now or I’ll want to drink within the next couple of years.
My suggestion would be to determine how many of your 400 bottles fall into the “don’t want to drink for at least five years” and look to offsite storage for that. Then for the remainder, if it exceeds the number of bottles you can put into your home wine unit, get either a second wine unit or replace the existing one with a larger one.
In roughly your situation, I opted for the Le Cache wine vault. It sounds like your intention is not to continue to grow your collection to the point where a closet or cellar makes sense. Offsite is fine; I have some in Chicago, but there is a tendency to lose track of wines–if you put them in in flat cases very difficult to access at a drop of the hat, especially as it’s COLD in there. So one more big wine cabinet might just do the trick.
Passive storage is always an option in MN but in Dallas not so much. I used to have a Le Cache wine storage unit but the motor went out and I did not want to spend $1,000 to replace.
Costco used to have some nice units cheap that would work but have not seen them in years.
I have a LeCache that holds 360 bottles. It was $3600 delivered. It looks good and has worked well. But I’m out of space.
If you’re going much beyond 500 bottles, you might consider a “wine room.” I have a friend who put one in his basement and it was <$5K. You assemble it yourself (a la IKEA) and the smallest one holds 800 bottles. Cheaper than converting a room. I’m thinking about it.
Great ideas. Thanks for all the thoughts. We are probably in this house 3 more years, so I’m not inclined to add a wine room. I think the best option for me is to continue with my wine fridge here and go offsite with the new stuff. That way, when we move, I don’t have to move the bulk of my wine. Looked at Classic and like the setup, but it’s a ways away. Most of the offsite wine storage appears to be based on double length cardboard tubes, which seems pretty handy. I will have to completely redo my Cellartracker to know what I have. Hoping to keep the collection around 500 bottles tops (but my Spain trip may blow that out of the water). At that number, I can usually remember the location and approximate cost of each bottle (other than everyday drinkers).
Get a commercial refrigerator off of Craigslist, and put it in your garage [they tend run 24x7, with a humming & whooshing sound, and the garage should offer good soundproofing]:
For Sale By Owner
https://dallas.craigslist.org/search/sso?sort=priceasc&query=commercial+refrigerator
For Sale By Middlemen
[includes lots of spam]
https://dallas.craigslist.org/search/ssq?sort=priceasc&query=commercial+refrigerator
You might need to order some extra shelving*, or make your own shelving with plywood, but any of those units should keep your wine icy cold for the next three years, at a fraction of the cost of the alternatives.
Also, those stainless-steel commercial units are very well insulated, and even during an extended power outage, it will be several days before their interiors start to warm noticeably. [In fact, if the noise still bothers you from the garage, then you can put the unit on a timer, so that it only runs during the day, when you’re not home, and just those eight hours of commercial-grade cooling will still keep your wine cold for several days afterwards.]
When you see what tanks the commercial units are, you’ll never be able to go back to consumer grade crap.
*One of the awesome things about purchasing commercial is that you can actually download PDF files for the owner’s manuals & the service manuals, with the part numbers for the spare parts, and then you can get on the internet and search for the lowest pricing from anywhere in North America [i.e. you’re generally not beholden to some consumer-grade shyster who has a regional monopoly on name-brand parts].