How and where do you cellar your Ports and Madeira?

[Roy Hersh]

What part of the house do you keep them in? Do you have a built in cellar, a stand up wine fridge, under-counter type, a closet, a crawl space or even an off site professional wine storage place? Is it passively cooled or do you use some sort of cooling unit? What temperature do you keep your cellar or other wine/Port storage area at? What about humidity? etc.

[Derek T.]

I have 2 wine fridges at home with a combined capacity of 110 bottles. They are kept at 12 degrees C. I do nothing about humidity but it isn't a problem as there is always some moisture in the fridges.

75% of my port is stored professionally in temperature controlled bonded warehouse.

[Glenn E.]

I have 2 wine fridges. One is a Danby 56 that holds primarily dry red wines and dessert wines but also a few bottles of Port, while the other is a Eurocave 283 that holds primarily Port but also a few bottles of dry red wine. Neither has the capacity advertised by their model numbers... the Danby will actually only hold 40 bottles plus the compressor shelf, which will hold either 3 bottles and 4 halves or 2 bottles and 6 halves. The Eurocave - as I have it configured with lots of extra slide-out shelving - will only hold 160 bottles plus the compressor shelf which I currently use to hold 5 magnums, 2 bottles, and 3 boxed bottles (it could theoretically hold 11 bottles or maybe 9 magnums).

Both of my wine fridges are set to 55 fahrenheit (13 celsius).

[Eric Ifune]

Have a small purpose built room adjacent to the garage with active cooling and humidification.

[Andy Velebil]

In my part of California very few houses have basements, mostly just a handful of the really old ex-farm houses from the 1800's or early 1900's. And with building codes due to earthquakes it's not easy to get a City to sign off on letting you dig a wine cellar basement, not to mention really expensive. So most of my stuff is at an offsite temp/humidity controlled wine storage facility not far from me. At home I have a 55 bottle cooler that I keep a mix of stuff for drinking whenever. I also have a small interior closet that always stays quite cool year round where I can keep overflow stuff for short term if I need to.

[Moses Botbol]

Most of it is on my parents' basement floor, stack on top of each other. A few cases are in my cellar floor as well. Temperature swings are very gradual. Works out pretty well, but it is drier than ideal in my cellars. I keep everything in their original case.

[Eric Menchen]

My basement as well. Temp range seems to be 50-60 F, maybe a little higher for a few months in the summer, but I haven't measured that lately. I'll definitely be watching it this summer as I consider options for improvement. I'd like to either build a controlled cellar or get a cooler. But while my temp control could be better, what I'm starting to worry about is humidity. It is very dry where I live in Colorado. Oh, and as you can see I need a bigger rack too, but I'm not going to purchase one until I figure out a better overall solution.

[Andy Velebil]

Eric,
Is the fermenter on the right for beer?

[Eric Menchen]

Eric,
Is the fermenter on the right for beer?

Indeed it is. It is a 14.5 gallon cylindroconical fermenter, a wonderful birthday present from my wife several years ago. Hiding behind it are bins of grain. The front bins will hold half a sack, the rear ones a full 55# sack.

[Andy Velebil]

WOOHOO!! Beer party at Eric's place

[Carlos Rodriguez]

I have a few of them at home in the wine cabinet, and the rest in the conditioned basement cellar I do have in the house in the country side.

[Eric Menchen]

It has since occurred to me that I have a lagering fridge that I could commandeer for port storage for a while. There is no humidity control, but I have a Johnson controller on it so I can set the temp to 55 F.

[Al B.]

I use a Eurocave wine cabinet at home, which has a capacity of a little over 200 bottles but rarely has that many in it. Most of my wine and port is stored offsite in a variety of temperature controlled warehouses.

But my ambition is to one-day be able to store all my wine at home. Whether I will actually ever realise my dream is a different question.

[Moses Botbol]

WOOHOO!! Beer party at Eric's place

I bet his beer is incredible too. :hello:

[Peter W. Meek]

... not easy to get a City to sign off on letting you dig a wine cellar basement....

My basement is made of 800 cubic yards of 21" thick reinforced concrete (it's a heavy house). Not too hard to isolate a room for a wine cellar. Active temp/humidity control at about 57dF/58%rh. Now if I just had more bottles, of more kinds, of port among those bottles.

As I get an idea about whose tastes are similar to mine here, I can begin getting in some variety.

[Eric Menchen]

I bet his beer is incredible too. :hello:

Why thank-you Moses. While everyone has their own tastes, I did win my first national medal a couple of years ago, and a few years earlier received a best in show in the Colorado State Fair for a kriek I made; so at least a few people think so. And with my kriek I was able to convince one of the local breweries to make a batch on their five barrel system. It should be ready as soon as I can do some blending coordination with them. Alas, the brewpub plans have been pushed out a bit due to economics. :?

[Roy Hersh]

Eric,

As I am dreading said moisture sucking atmosphere and nose bleed dryness that folks in Colorado seem to get accustomed to, for my upcoming visit the first week in August ... I must at least mention that you REALLY should look at some sort of humidification of your wine storage area. I know you've not been collecting Ports all that long, but those corks will fail when older given the incredible dryness in your area. Protect your investment in future drinking pleasure.



Al B.,

What prevents you from realizing your dream and moving your bottles into your home? Afraid of scaring Mrs. B?

[Gerwin de Graaf]

My father and I have built a "wine-storage-room in my dad's garage (about 2 by 4 metres - about 6 by 12 feet) where we store our wines and Ports. It's fully isolated and has a unit for temperature and humidity control. It's capacity is about 2000 - 2500 bottles I think.

I do believe it's important to keep ones (precious and savoured) wines and ports as well as possible at steady temperature and humidity. And if nothing else, there are few nicer things than to be able to walk around browsing your collection of wine/port and picking out just the one you want.

Now all I have to do is move closer to my dad's !! (this will happen in the near future, and -even better- my new house gives me the opportunity to build my own wine-storadge-room (a bit smaller than my dad's but still!).

Gerwin

[Eric Menchen]

I must at least mention that you REALLY should look at some sort of humidification of your wine storage area. I know you've not been collecting Ports all that long, but those corks will fail when older given the incredible dryness in your area. Protect your investment in future drinking pleasure.

I've been checking the humidity levels in my storage area and it has been in the 60-65% range. I guess I should be striving for more than 70%, which calls for something active.

[Andy Velebil]

I must at least mention that you REALLY should look at some sort of humidification of your wine storage area. I know you've not been collecting Ports all that long, but those corks will fail when older given the incredible dryness in your area. Protect your investment in future drinking pleasure.

I've been checking the humidity levels in my storage area and it has been in the 60-65% range. I guess I should be striving for more than 70%, which calls for something active.

60-65% should be fine. I would be worried if it was regularly below the 60% though, at least for the long term cellering stuff.