First posting on the site and hopefully this is the correct category for the question. I’m in the final design stage of a DIY cellar in a new home construction this summer in the Colorado mountains. I’m considering installing a cabinet in the cellar with a wine fridge for storage of white wines at lower temperatures than the cellar (58 deg). Rather than design and install a separate venting method for the exhaust air from the wine fridge, I’m considering to just let it exhaust into the cellar and then the cellar cooling unit will cool that exhaust air to 58 deg. I realize that the cellar unit (a split ducted unit planned) might run a little extra time for the additional cooling but does anyone see a bigger issue with this plan and thinking?
I’m not really understanding the purpose of this, is it just so the whites would be more immediately ready to drink when you pull them out of the cellar? We just have a dual zone under counter wine fridge in the kitchen that we can stage wine to for immediate drinking and keep our house wines in which would likely be more convenient and less expensive than what you’re proposing.
Welcome to the board! There is no reason to store at two temps, and I would never exhaust warm air into the cellar
Live in CO and put in a couple cellars. But that is not really relevant here. Venting the hot exhaust into the cellar is a bad idea for the obvious reasons. By far the simplest solution is to put the white wines near the floor where temps are cooler and leave it at that. If this is not up to your specs then just put a small wine fridge somewhere else. Don’t setup a system that fights against itself.
Agree. Based on another thread I think you can expect a vertical gradient to exist with warmer temperatures higher up in the cellar and lower temperatures lower unless there is a fan actively circulating the air (not many people do that and the fan will give off some heat). I see an 6-10 F difference from the ceiling to the floor in my unit depending on the time of the year. I’d simply plan on putting white wines and wines you want to age the longest as close to the floor as possible and keep reds that you’ll drink in the nearer term up higher.
Agree, you’re overthinking it. 58 degrees for all kinds of wines is fine for long and short term storage. Unless you want to keep wine in Glamis Castle for 150 years, there is no point in obsessing over a couple of degrees
Thanks everyone. I will take the good advice and simply use the lower racks to store the whites (which are a small minority of the total cellar count.
If I later find the whites need further cooling prior to drinking, I can use the wine fridge (outside the cellar) to cool them.
Thanks again all.
I use a cooling sleeve or just throw them in regular fridge for thirty minutes or freezer for - few minutes. Ice bath also works for a quick chill down.
Agree with everyone that you don’t want two devices fighting against each other. If you want to cool a white down to drinking temp quickly, consider one of these (admittedly kind of ridiculous) gadgets. Never would buy one for myself, but I got one as a gift, and it’ll chill a bottle down in just a couple minutes. I actually use it all the time… no longer produced but $50 on the bay.
I always follow the ice bath method. Works very well.
Welcome to the board. I agree with all - don’t put a refrigerator into a wine cellar - like others - I just store my whites at 55/56 which is my cellar temp. Except for champagne it is a good temperature and takes little time to cool down a few degrees if you want your whites cooler.
Another point of reference, based upon board recommendations I picked up that chilling sleeve Brian posted, along with a couple of this one that Jim Stewart and others use:
Just about every evening my friends and I get together I include a couple of whites from my passive cellar and, invariably, we end up wanting to not leave them in the chiller all evening, as they actually get way too cold leaving them chilling all evening. So, like those posters above, I have little doubt your 58 degrees whites coming out of the cellar will be plenty cold with just a little time in a chilling bucket or sleeve.
Agree with those that said no wine fridge in the cellar, and you shouldn’t need to put the whites on the bottom shelves if you have a decent cooling unit as it will circulate the air so the whole cellar will be at the same temp with maybe only a couple of degrees difference between floor and ceiling.