We’re getting ready to sell our house and while are very happy about that…we also just finished our passive cellar in the crawl space. We are not planning on buying a place any time soon and may be looking at living in a 5th wheel trailer. So needless to say, we’re looking for some options about where to store our wine. While I LOVE living in NW Montana, we are “out there” as they might say and wine storage facilities are few(none) and far between. We’ve got a cellar of about 500 bottles and I would say there are probably around 100 that we really intend for long term storage, 100 that would be nice for some aging and the rest probably not worth the effort or money for off-site options.
Anyone know of off-site options in the area(5 hour drive maybe??)? I can’t seem to find much, and I called around to a few of the wine shops and people seem to either be baffled by the idea or totally clueless. Thoughts on possibly a traditional storage unit with power??? put in a Eurocave or wine fridge? Worse comes to worse, standard climate controlled unit just in boxes, would probably see some temperature fluctuation so not ideal. Drive into the woods and bury in a cave, make a treasure map to remember where it is???
Just at a loss here. Possibly someone might know of someone in the area with some cellar space we could rent?
Your best bet might be Spokane, which is the nearest decent-size city. Looks like there is a place called Movher which offers wine storage. No personal experience with them.
Awsome, thanks for to find. Ill try giving them a call. From the website seems like $5/case per month, which from reading on this site sems like a bit high. Maybe they do some discounts on multiple cases. Thanks!
Well I gave Movher a call and seemed like nice folks, but…the set up seems a bit strange. They said the wine storage is in a separate locked area, great. But everyones wine is in the same “room” everyone just has separate shelves for their wine. Unlockable separate shelves. I said well what keeps someone from taking my wine and he said that there is always an employee there if someone is in the wine room.
For $5 a case a month seems security should be way better, right.
$5/case/month is what it costs in Denver at the lowest quantity of storage, but you get a locked locker. You might ask them if you can buy some cheap trunks and keep the wine locked in them with a padlock - would at least keep the crimes of opportunity from happening.
Good idea! Yeah, I’m not too opposed to the price, although a discount on some multiple of cases would be nice, it’s just that security issue. I mean the 50-100 wines I would store would likely have a good o $10k, probably more, value. Not sure these guys thought it out too well. Plus on the website it says no generator available during power outages. They say they were advised not to add one as wine temperature will hold fairly steady even during a power outage.
Seattle has lots of choices, Seattle Wine Storage being one I have visited, top notch. Yes, it’s a long way, but Amtrak goes from Whitefish to Seattle everyday. I took the Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago, then Boston and a bunch of other places, and I was amazed at how many people in Montana/ND use it as a normal method of (inexpensive) travel, and Seattle to Glacier seems a short hop for many skiers, vacationers, etc… We’d do it again and maybe routinely if we lived either end. Easy to haul cases of wine on Amtrak too.
Worst case scenario, I can file for divorce or ask my wife. I have a prime crawl space that is slated for passive storage in a house we built last year on Rattlesnake Creek (no basement for that reason) in Missoula. With a 1&3 year old I haven’t really tracked temp/humidity fluctuations but we built this home with an extremely heavy emphasis on efficiency…so my assumption is that is should serve as almost an ideal cellar w/o additional mechanical. Plenty of room, it’s the time! Only way this works is if I sell my wife that it’s a huge value add for holding once we buff it out. Kidding aside, good luck in your search, if I was a year or do down the road it might be a viable option. For now, she’d murder me and just assume I was buying more wine!
Love tyhis idea, hadn’t though about the train. I live about 6 miles from a train station too, so it would be super easy to get on.
However, I did some quick looking and it seems that the trains luggage car is not temperature controlled, at least from what i read. While the wine might be ok…it could get either pretty cold in there( Montana freezing) to real hot in there(spring/summer) pretty quick. Sounds like a bad or not great scenerio for transporting a good $ of wine. But I still really like this idea and might have to chew on it a bit more.
I know what you mean, here we are with 500 btls of wine, getting ready to sell our house, have no idea what to do with the wine we have and…I’m still wanting to buy more wine!! My wife would kill me if I came home with any more!
With 500 bottles, it’s worth the drive to Seattle when temps are moderate. After that, with a wine suitcase or two, you could shuttle a case or two at a time on the train when you need it.
Luggage car is not an option at Whitefish or other small stations. Train only stops long enough for carry on. We learned that the hard way w 3-4 large bags for a 3 week trip. For wine, a couple of wine checks easy for carraige on that train. It has double decker cars w lots of space below and scenic glass upper level. Temp would be 60-70F.
Next time we do it, we’ll take our own for consumption too. Covertly.
I was living in Kalispell for the last couple of years and rented a nine case locker from Esquin Wine Merchants In Seattle. They would ship my wine on request and the cost was negligible. The monthly cost of the locker was under $30.00 with a discount for paying the cost of the lease upfront.
What about just throwing it in a temp controlled Public Storage type place? In NW Montana, I assume it will not get too warm, but if it does, A/C will kick on. And since it will generally be cold, I would assume they will not keep the place in the 70’s as it would be expensive to heat, probably letting it drop into the 60’s before the heater kicks on, which I would think would be just fine.
Or, if not acceptable, find a place like this that has power outlets. Then order a couple of wine fridges from Costco and load them up.