Root cellar originally, 2/3 of an acre with a couple of additional outbuildings.
-Al
Would be inconvenient to have to dig through lots of snow to grab a couple bottles of wine though in the winter.
I worked on the wine cellar a little more this weekend, with the goal being to finish the door and seal everything up in preparation for the cooling unit.
First up, I caulked and painted the door stops attached to the jamb, and then installed weatherstripping.
Then I painted and installed the door casing and added some locking hardware to the door. I don’t really need it to lock right now, but my niece and nephew are getting older and will probably start bringing friends up, so I decided to install a hasp just in case.
I’ve still got to touch up some paint and install baseboards and trim inside the cellar, but the end is in sight!
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I am so impressed with guys and gals who know how to construct these things themselves. 
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Ditto!!
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Looking good Charles! It looks like you’re almost there.
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Love the hardware on the door.
Good luck getting to the finish line. Enjoy seeing the progress.
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Wine cellar update: Last weekend I worked on some of the finishing touches and installed baseboards and wall/ceiling trim.
This weekend was all about the refrigeration unit. I built a shelf for the cooling unit, then rebuilt it when I discovered that the drain line wasn’t where I thought it was. Then I trimmed out the hole where the unit is installed, then installed the cooling unit.
The final step was to actually test the cooling unit to make sure everything worked. All the walls are insulated to R-21, and the ceiling is insulated to R-42, so I was pretty sure it would hold temperature. The real worry was the vapor barrier. I was as careful as possible with the vapor barrier, and I was pretty sure there wasn’t any major leaks, but you never know. My nightmare is for the cooling unit to start dumping buckets of water due to a leak.
So I rigged up the condensate line to drain into a trash can—just in case—and fired up the cooling unit. After a 24 hour test, the cellar was holding 55°F and there was just a few drops of water. It works! Huzzah! 
Next step: Filler ‘er up!
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Hey all, we are doing a redesign with building of a cellar. The architect keeps showing me pictures of options with lots of glass. Two questions 1. should I be worried about light and 2. is there a particular type of glass that can be used?
I think it’s pretty well established that light is bad for aging wine…hence, why most wines designed to age are packaged in darker glass bottles. If the intent is a show cellar filled with wine you’ll drink in the short- to mid-term, shouldn’t be an issue. If the intent is long-term aging, I would consider limiting glass. Another option may be some sort of tinted glass, but I have no experience with that.
I believe it’s mostly UV light that is problematic, so ensuring that the glass has a UV filter applied should suffice. And for the most part, your cellar is unlikely to be exposed to much direct sunlight as well.
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Glass is also a much worse insulator than walls so you will likely need a larger conditioning unit the more glass you use. We were talked out of using as much glass as we originally wanted for this reason.
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I’m feeling cynical today, so my first thought was whether glass was the more expensive option.
Thinking about the future, what if the next owner doesn’t want a wine cellar? Would all that glass be a plus or a minus, should it be converted to something else?
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Glass is great if looking into the cellar is a big priority. It obviously costs more and is less efficient to cool. So that is really a personal choice.
The sad news is home buyers very rarely pay extra for a nice wine cellar. Anyone around here would but not a factor in the general real estate market. Sad.
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To offer another point of view, i absolutely love my glass wine wall. Ive had zero issues with light negatively affecting my wines, but as referenced above, mine also does not get exposed to direct sunlight.
Is it the most efficient cellar ever built? Nope, definitely not. Does it make me smile literally every time i walk into my house? You bet your ass it does 
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Congrats! I have been following your posts for months now and have enjoyed reading them a lot. I’m still in my first home, and with no space for a cellar, everything is in off site storage for the foreseeable future. I can’t wait to embark on this journey myself one day though. Amazing work!
Thanks. It’s been a long journey. It would have been finished a lot sooner if I had hired it out, but it’s been a great project. It was a lot of fun learning new woodworking skills and even doing the actual work.
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Dude, this is gorgeous. Well done!
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Ok, it’s official. The wine cellar is open for business! The wine has been transported, roughly sorted, and shelved. The cooling unit is on, and the temperature is dropping. I figure it will take several days for the wine and cellar to reach temp, but then we’re ready to pop some corks!
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Also, I would like to take this opportunity to beg, plead, and grovel to @Marcus_Goodfellow to please please please use smaller bottles.
My double deep bins will hold 21 Burgundy-style bottles with a standardish diameter of 3-1/4 inches. Unfortunately, most Goodfellow bottles are 3-3/8 inches. That extra 1/8 inch means I can only fit 15 Goodfellow bottles in a double deep bin, and it’s killing my packing density. I can fit 40% more Vincent, Sun Break, Evesham Wood, or most other bottles in a bin compared to Goodfellow.
(And yes I know it’s not just Goodfellow that uses a 3-3/8” Burgundy bottle. But that’s the largest producer in my cellar by bottle count.)
Marcus, I promise to buy 40% more wine from you if you use a slightly smaller bottle! You can even create a whole campaign for your distributers about how you’re doing your part to save the environment by using lighter packaging. It will be our little secret that the smaller bottle was really so you can save me some space. I’m sure all the other Berserkers can keep a secret. Whadaya say? 
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