Simple Wine Storage Tips Can Avoid Damage To Your Vino

Wine storage is a key to avoiding damaged wine. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

OK, wine aficionados, today we’re happy to pass along these wine storage tips courtesy of our friends at Underground Cellar.

"I don't have a fancy cellar or wine fridge to protect my wines- how should I store my small-yet-important stash of bottles? I don't want to ruin them before I can drink them!"

Look, most casual wine drinkers are not utilizing a climate-controlled walk-in cellar of any sorts, and many folks don't even have a small countertop wine fridge in the kitchen or dining room.

The thing is, you don't have to spend big money on a fancy wine cooler that's bigger than your kitchen refrigerator or dig a small cave into the hillside next to your house to safely store your bottles of vino.

Here are a few easy yet important tips on keeping your wine from being damaged in your home:

* Consistency of temperature is key. Major temp fluctuation kills wine, and may lead to cork leakage due to the wine expanding/contracting from the wide temp changes. No bueno!

* Keep the wine out of direct light- be it sunshine or direct bright indoor lighting of any kind. There's a reason almost all wine bottles use tinted, colored glass- it's like wine sunglasses to protect the juice inside from damaging UV rays.

* Store your wines on their side, ensuring the cork stays moist. If a bottle is aged for many years upright there's a chance that dry cork could crumble and be a pain in the ass to extract in one piece! I hate trying to fish out cork bits from my precious wine...it's torture.

By remembering these very simple yet very effective storage tips, you can find a suitable spot in your humble abode to keep your wines safe and provide you with a little peace of mind as well.

1) First grab a few crates, racks, or simple storage shelves to hold your bottles. There are many options online, at the wine shop, or hardware store that are cheap and effective.

2) Next clean out that half-full, disorganized, under-utilized closet/pantry space. Reorganize that cluttered basement. Clear out those old golf clubs from underneath the staircase. Make room for your cherished vino collection to move in and find a new, safe home:)

3) Then get your DWSA (Designated Wine Storage Area) identified, prepared, and stocked up. Minor temp fluctuations in your home are normal and just fine. Keeping temps between 55-65 degrees in your DWSA would be ideal, but again as long as things are pretty stable you should be fine.

 

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Underground Cellar Shakes Up the World of Internet Wine Sales

For the past couple years, the wine consumer has been living large. Large grape harvests paired with an economic downturn left top-end wine producers with too much product and too few customers. Numerous “flash sale” sites on the internet popped up to sell the surplus at rock bottom prices.
From a selfish point of view (mine) this is great! Typically the wine deals are only available for 24 or 48 hours – but if you act within that window, you can score great deals. With a little bit of patience to wait for the right offer, you can also get free shipping.
For wineries, this obviously isn’t the greatest deal. They end up selling their wine at deep discounts which hurts their profitability. Their brand image is tarnished too. Of course, the pendulum is now swinging back the other way. The economy is better – or at least stabilized. We even have a real or imagined “wine shortage’ looming in the future.
When I heard about the launch of a new online wine site, I greeted it with a blasé “ho hum.” But when I checked out Underground Cellar, I was surprised. Here’s why…
Instead of selling off slow moving premium wines at discounted prices, they offer a different value proposition that’s a “win-win” for both wineries and consumers. Underground Cellars is a start-up founded by technology entrepreneur Jeffrey Shaw. Rather than offering discounted wines, they offer opportunities to upgrade for free to higher priced wines or private stashes of hard to get bottles from high-end wineries.
For example, they are currently offering a deal with Sapphire Hill Winery of Sonoma. It includes four different bottles, ranging from $20 to $85. You pay $20 per bottle (which is the price of their Merlot blend) and have a chance to be upgraded to a bottle of their Dry Creek Zin ($28), Cinque Gemma blend ($40) or a magnum of Pinot Noir ($85). The odds of receiving the bottles are 57%, 28%, 14% and 1% respectively. If you purchase four bottles, odds are your order will have a couple of upgrades.
So there is a bit of gamification to make things interesting! You don’t know what you get until your order arrives.
Another cool feature is the social media aspect. You have an opportunity to comment on the various offers and interact directly with prestigious vintners and wine aficionados. Each comment can build your “influence” which will increase your likelihood of getting an upgrade.
This next feature is something completely new to me. It is their “cloud cellar.” Everyone knows a downfall of online wine purchasing is the shipping. If you are buying cases, it is no problem – you usually get free or discounted shipping. If you are only buying one or two bottles, you can end up paying the cost of another bottle in shipping alone.
With the cloud cellar, you can purchase your wine and they store it for you in a temperature controlled cellar in Napa Valley until you are ready to receive the shipment. The beauty of this is you can wait until you accumulate six bottles (which would be $5 shipping) or 12 bottles (which is free). I also think it would be cool to say, “I’m expecting a shipment from my wine cellar in Napa!”
It’s well worth checking out the Underground Cellar site so you can see for yourself. I just ordered three bottles from the Sapphire Hill offer, wish me luck!
Full disclosure: Promotional consideration provided by Underground Cellar.
Photo Credit: Jesse757 via Compfight cc

Is Counter Space a Necessity in Wine Cellars?

Do you really need a counter space in your wine cellar? What important construction tips will you need to know?

If you have a wine room in your home, are you simply storing wine or are you entertaining? Building a counter space or wine tasting table in your wine room means additional expense. But as you will see later, wine counters are actually a worthy investment to have as additional features in wine cellars and wine rooms for you to enjoy entertaining your guests or tasting wines.

Wine bars definitely complete the entertainment package that wine cellars and rooms bring. If strategically placed inside the cellar or wine room, it can serve as an attractive free-standing fixture on its own. You and your friends can conveniently taste wines and take sips on the bar counters while enjoying the ambiance inside your wine room.

If you are still considering putting in a wine counter in your wine room, you should consider these important matters:
As a general rule, the height of the bar must be 42 inches. This is the standard for bar counters. It is important to follow this height specification so that you won’t find it hard to choose bar chairs to match it unless you plan to customize everything in your cellar.

An extension behind your counter for working or mixing drinks is a convenient addition. If your budget allows it, you can have this portion built. Here, you can choose to lower the height of the working counter to your most convenient height preferred. Most likely, you can take your kitchen countertop as a reference.

The construction material of the bar counter should be according to your perceived use of the bar. There are a variety of materials you can choose from like marble, granite, ceramics, and wood. The best material to have is one that adds aesthetic beauty to the countertop while handling harsh treatment like wine stains, water drops and fingerprints, and scratches.

If you can keep all these considerations then it is really worthy to have counter spaces inside the wine cellars. You can place countertop wine coolers on your mini bar so you can pre-chill the wines that you intend to serve or consume for the night or for the week. Small wine racks are also a good idea to have on top of the counters. Tops are also great places to store chocolates, cheeses, snacks, finger foods, and other wine accouterments.

Having a mini wine counter inside the wine rooms, most especially in custom wine cellars, is definitely a must-have. What’s more, you get to save money and space for constructing another place to enjoy drinking your wine collection because you already have one in your very own wine cellar.

Author: Kristi Davis is a writer for Wine Cellar Innovations, a company that manufactures wine racks and wine cellars. Her favorite part is exploring the photo galleries of beautiful installations that come through on a daily basis. Follow her for more wine storage tips on Twitter and Facebook.

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4 Essential Items to Know Before Building Your Wine Room

Are you fascinated in the idea of having your very own customized wine cellar? As you have started down the path to collecting wine and bringing it back home, where are you storing it? Hopefully it’s not hidden away in your pantry, or tucked away in the closet. You need a place to show off all those carefully collected wine bottles! Your collection has turned into a piece of art that you want to show off and share with friends and family.

If you are thinking about building out a wine room, there are important things you should consider. With the amount of wine bottles you have collected in the past years of learning about wine, you may be running out of room or even just want more of a showcase look to entertain with.

With a customized cellar you know that you can add some personal touches and you can cater it to your particular specifications for keeping and storing your wine collection. There are actually a wide variety of options readily available to people who aspire to construct their very own customized wine cellar. Fortunately for them, these wine rooms or cellar styles and designs are for anyone interested - from the complete amateur to the enthusiastic do-it-yourself wine cellar maker, and to those who have state-of-the-art woodworking experts to work for their wine cellars.

Now, if you are looking to create a wine cellar that is custom-designed to your needs but you don't intend to build a wine racking system from scratch, then here is the basic remedy that will certainly enable you to create your unique custom-made wine rack style or design.

The modular wine racking arrangement is usually in the market in various grains and coatings. In general, the least costly are those made from pine wood. Traders of modular wine racking systems most likely will propose other materials of construction like premium Redwood, Malaysian Mahogany, or red cedar. After the style of wood is selected, you can have different lacquers and stains applied to really be unique.

With modular wine racks available today, it’s easy to buy different wine rack kits to create a customized cellar that fits into the available space in your home. The best part of opting for modular wine racks is the fact that it can be easily combined and complemented with several varieties of other cellar racking styles. This will satisfy particular requirements or generate a distinctive personal style.

After selecting the specific wine racks, the choices of crown molding and skirting items are offered so you can simply blend together various designs of wine racking components and kinds.

Several wine cellar rack manufacturers currently have particular pieces that can aid you further in modifying your modular racking scheme.

Recent designs include a built-in glass racking system which is tailored to suit conveniently in any racking system. This feature adds to the character or ambiance as well as efficiency of the custom-made modular wine holders.

The most cost-effective kind of component cellaring is the dozen-bin racking system. This type of racking in modular mode can accommodate a dozen of wine bottles in one compartment. This can be specifically suitable for wine fanatics who buy their favorite wines by bulk.

Case racking on the other hand, have two types - standing wine case and short wooden case. Case racking is quite an appealing and an efficient way of storing wine bottles in their original packaging.

If you are building out a complete wine cellar room, the most visually important aspect of the area is the door. Wine cellar doors are also deemed notable part of the style as well as constructing procedure. Knowing the layout of your room and how you want your door installed is the first step. The second step is deciding upon the style of door to complement your room. With different varieties of wood, glass, and wrought iron, the possibilities are endless.

Today we have a guest author, Kristi Davis. Kristi loves working at Grotto Custom Wine Cellars and helping wine lovers figure out the best way to store their wine. She has two kids, a loving husband, and some beautiful wine racks filled with wine.