5 Tips for Designing Your Custom Wine Cellar

As Benjamin Franklin once said, wine is “constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy!” If you’re as big of a wine lover as Benjamin Franklin, a home wine cellar would make the perfect addition to your house. A properly constructed wine cellar allows you to store and age your wine to perfection, without ever leaving your property. Whether you’ve already decided to install one and are searching for custom wine cellar ideas or you’re still deciding whether a wine cellar is right for you, we’ve come up with some essential tips you should follow when designing a custom wine cellar.

1. Start With the Why – Are you installing a wine cellar that guests can also enjoy? Or are you installing a wine cellar simply to store your vast amounts of wine? Asking yourself why you’re installing the cellar will make design and detail decisions down the road much easier. If you aren’t planning on showing off your cellar to guests, you can skip decorative display racking and instead get increased bottle capacity. If you want your cellar to make your neighbors green however, consider adding upgrades like islands, archways or even waterfalls.


2. Determine the Location – The location of your wine cellar is extremely important. The ideal conditions for storing wine are between 55 and 60˚F and 50-70 percent relative humidity. Wine cellars require adequate insulation, a moisture barrier and an airtight seal to function properly. The key to creating an efficient and affordable wine cellar is choosing a quality spot and using materials that can efficiently control temperature and humidity.


3. Select a Wine Cooling Unit – Unlike normal cooling units, wine cooling units control humidity as well as the temperature. There are several different ways you can cool your cellar. The easiest and most cost-effective way is with a through-wall unit that’s installed in the framing of the wall. A split cooling system is more expensive and requires professional installation, but it takes up less space and creates less noise in the cellar. Additionally, there is a ducted cooling system option. This system also requires professional installation and typically costs the most, but it produces no noise and takes up no space in your cellar.


4. Decide How to Display Your Wine – Once you’ve hammered out the details of where and how to build your wine cellar, you’ll need to decide how you want to display your wine within the cellar. Popular choices include individual bottle storage racks, diamond bin storage (bulk storage with some flair), case storage (designed to hold bottles in their original cases) or tabletops with some form of storage below. If you’re having trouble deciding, consider how much wine you’d like to store and how much time you want to spend in your actual cellar.


5. Choose Your Lighting – When designing a wine cellar that’s meant to be seen and appreciated, selecting your lighting is paramount. Incandescents and halogen bulbs emit too much heat to be left on for long in a cellar. LED lighting on the other hand emits virtually no heat and comes in many shapes, sizes and colors.

Whether you want to design and install a DIY wine cellar from scratch or you want some help designing and installing a custom wine cellar, Wine Cabinets has got you covered. From the drawing board through installation, we can help make sure your home or commercial wine cellar fits your personality and your space perfectly.