California Wine Cellars: The Importance of Wine Racks for Wine Storage

A beautifully made custom wine cellar in Orange County, California is the best resting place for your beloved wines. Since this is where you’ll be keeping your precious wine collection, it is important that you take into consideration each essential factor. A wine cellar has to be planned carefully before it is built. Here are the steps that you need to take when constructing a wine storage room:

1. Decide on How Many Bottles You Intend to Store

More important than having an available space for your wine cellar is how you can maximize it. It is important to consider how many bottles you plan to store in your wine storage room. Basically, you need to estimate how many wine bottles you consume every year. Then, calculate for the average age of the wines that you have now. Multiply these two values. For example, if you consume 300 bottles of wine in one year and the average age of the wines in your collection in 4 years old, then you intend to store 1200 wine bottles.

2. Plan Your Budget

It is a given that you need to spend a considerable amount of money when you have a custom wine cellar constructed. It won’t come cheap, but think of it as an investment because you will suffer greater loss if your wines are not stored properly. In order to come up with a reasonable budget for your wine cellar, you need to make a checklist of items needed in a wine cellar and identify which ones are most important to you and which ones you can forego.

3. Consider Carefully Where You Plan To Have The Wine Cellar Built

You can generally choose to have your residential wine cellar built anywhere in your house, but it is very important to consider first whether you want a passive wine cellar or a refrigerated one. Passive wine cellars utilize the temperature of the ground to manage the changes in temperature. These cellars make temperature changes not on a daily basis, but depending on what season it is. Thus, passive wine cellars need to be built in a subterranean basement. Refrigerated wine cellars, on the other hand, can be constructed anywhere in the house. All you need to think about is what wine cellar cooling system will be installed in it.

4. Prepare the Wine Storage Room Properly

There are many things that need to be done in order to prepare a custom wine cellar. You need to have a vapor barrier, a wine cellar refrigeration unit, a well-insulated wine cellar door and wine racks. Consult a wine cellar specialist to make sure that none of these are left out. These play a very important role in making sure that your cellar functions the way it should.

5. Design Your Residential Wine Cellar in Orange County

This is one of the most exciting parts of wine cellar construction. In this step, you will have to decide what type of wood you will use for your cellar, what type of racking will you have installed, what lighting you want inside and what paint color you want for your wine cellar room.

Wine cellar refrigeration systems are an essential part of wine storage. Here are a few basic things that you need to know about wine cellar cooling systems:

1. How Important is A Wine Cellar Cooling Unit?

Your residential wine cellar needs to have an efficient wine cellar cooling system installed. A regular, household air conditioning unit cannot provide the required conditions for wine preservation. Only wine cellar refrigeration units can provide the right temperature and humidity inside a custom wine cellar.

2. What are Wine Refrigerators For?

There are various kinds of wines and they need to be stored at differing, respective temperatures. Champagne and other types of bubbly wine need to be stored in a temperature of 43 to 47 degrees Fahrenheit. Red wines, generally, should be stored in 59 to 66 degrees Fahrenheit. Most white wines should be stored in 46 to 57 degrees Fahrenheit. Wine refrigerators are best for individual wine storage. Wine fridges installed inside your home wine cellar will allow you to chill these different types of wines at their appropriate storage temperatures.

3. How to Prepare a Wine Cellar Before Installing a Cooling Unit

The wine cellar refrigeration unit is the most important part of any custom wine cellar. It is important to understand that a wine cellar cooling unit should not be installed without first preparing the wine cellar properly. To ready a wine cellar for the installation of a cooling unit, make sure that the interior walls of the wine room are covered with at least R11 insulation. The outside of the walls should be covered with at least R19 insulation. The walls should also have a vapor barrier. Vapor barriers, also called moisture barriers, are made of polyethylene plastic sheeting. These are installed on the warm side of the cellar walls, to prevent condensation and mold formation.

The wine cellar flooring also needs to have vapor barriers. If your cellar floor is made of concrete, you need a vapor barrier with concrete sealant. All kinds of wine cellar flooring need a vapor barrier and R19 insulation.

The Different Kinds of Wine Cellar Refrigeration Units

a. Through the Wall Wine Cellar Cooling Unit – This is the type of cooling unit that is simply mounted on the cellar wall. The exhaust of this cooling system is released into an adjacent room. It is recommended that this adjacent room is air conditioned, so that the exhausted heat may be dissipated.
b. Ductless Split Cellar Cooling System – This cooling system is similar to the through-the-wall unit; the difference is that its evaporator coil remains in the room with a split cooling unit, while its condenser is in another room or outside the house. This type of cooling unit needs a drain for its excess condensation.

c. Ducted Wine Cellar Refrigeration Unit – You can opt to mount this kind of cooling system on your cellar wall or have it fully ducted into and out from the custom wine cellar and an adjacent room.

More and more people are getting into the hobby of collecting wine. This is especially true among those who like to travel. As they visit places in the world that are renowned for local wineries, they often take bottles of wine home with them, to serve as reminders of their memorable trips.

As a wine collection grows, it is inevitable that people will start to consider the need to have a custom wine cellar built in their own homes.

Here are a few things you need to learn about custom wine cellars:

The Function of Custom Wine Cellars in Orange County, California

The basic function of a wine cellar is to protect your wines from damage. A good wine cellar is able to provide the ideal conditions for proper storage of various kinds of wines. Wines need to age gradually, and an ideal environment is necessary so that its flavors, undertones and aromas may develop tastefully. Proper wine storage is the key to good tasting wine.

Ideally, wine should be kept in a temperature of 50-55 degrees Fahrenheit with a humidity of 60-75%.

Custom wine cellars in Orange County, California vary in sizes. The biggest wine cellars can hold up to 50,000 bottles of wine. You do not necessarily have to own a huge wine cellar. It all depends on how many wines you intend to collect, the available space you have in your house and the budget you have at hand.

If you do not have enough space at home, you might want to consider wine storage cabinets. These come in various sizes to fit different kinds of homes. These cabinets require a plug in order for them to provide the ideal conditions necessary for proper wine storage.

What You Need When Building a Custom Wine Cellar?

Budget is one of the essential needs for building a wine cellar. A custom wine cellar may be costly, but those who truly value wine understand that having a custom wine cellar built in your home in Orange County, CA is a wise investment.

Some people think that wine cellars have to be built in a basement area or somewhere excavated from a foundation. The truth is, custom wine cellars in California can be built in almost any space available in your house. It can be in an empty bedroom or even in a large closet.