Your collection ... protected with a proper cellar?

[Roy Hersh]

Here's a fun and basic view of cellaring in a finely created video. This is a commercial in fact, for Spiral Cellars. Very cool though.

http://www.spiralcellars.co.uk/spiral-cellar-video/

Pretty cool eh ... what do you think?

[Eric Menchen]

I couldn't find or get a video to play, but a really interesting cellar concept and a lot of good information on that web site. I could buy a lot of Port for the cost of one of their cellars, so I think I'll just go with my built-in cooler in the basement concept.

[Roy Hersh]

I click on the link and the video begins automatically.

[Peter W. Meek]

Nice concept, to make a fairly stable environment using the thermal mass of the ground as a passive regulator. I do question the correctness of allowing outside air to circulate by convection through the cellar. I would think that would cause severe humidity changes from summer to winter in cold-temperate climes. Perhaps if it is somehow restricted it removes excess humidity without bringing it too low. It might even have controllable volume depending on the relative humidity in the cellar and outside the house. I would need to be satisfied on how that works before considering one of these.

This assumes my knees could stand it. I speak from experience having 64 steps from the bottom to the top of my house. I like being able to move wine on a wheeled cart directly from the car to the shelf in the cellar. Climbing up and down those stairs carrying a case would destroy me very quickly.

Eric,
The video is the main window in the middle of the page. On my system it plays automatically when you open the page. It starts with a scene of a vinyard with a voice-over. You may be missing a plug-in for whatever video codec they used if it won't play. The video is mostly testimonials; the construction is roughly the third quarter of the video. And cellars certainly aren't the cheapest way to store wine. Very convenient, though. It's nice to walk in and browse through all the available wine. And at some point the cost of running large numbers of refrigerators begins to get expensive as a long-term operating cost. A single large cooler seems like a fairly good middleground between multiple refrigerators, and a refrigerated (and partially ground-thermally) cooled cellar.

[Derek T.]

I know a man who has plans to build one of these at his home.

[Eric Menchen]

O.k., the video worked this time. Before I just got a blank black space in the middle of the page, and I left it up for quite a while. I too wonder about the humidity. In the video, it appears they dug the whole thing by hand. Yikes!

[Rob C.]

I purchased my transtherm wine cabinets from someone who had just had one of these installed (and finally taken delivery of his 150+ case collection which had all been brought en primeur and stored off-site over the course of the last 15 years).

It was very impressive and, aside from the storage function, also displayed the wine amazingly - though certainly not cheap (the 1900 bottle capacity installation runs to something like £22,000).

But it is quite a steep and narrow staircase - break a leg or slip a disc and suddenly the lower wines become inaccessible for 6 months!

* I should add, the one I saw did have a console unit displaying temperature and humidity - though whether this was for information only or linked to any sort of humidifier I am not sure.

[Glenn E.]

Seems like it would be pretty trivial to add a cooling/humidifying unit to the system, though with the deeper cellars the cooling unit shouldn't be necessary.

I found the "waterproof liner" humorous... it would be mandatory out here in Seattle.

Far cheaper just to convert my study into a walk-in cellar, though. I think my study could hold more than 2000 bottles with proper racking and it wouldn't cost anywhere near 22.5k pounds to convert it. The trick is getting approval from the boss.

[Eric Menchen]

The trick is getting approval from the boss.

Cost aside, it is a lot harder to get approval from the boss to sacrifice the study or part of the basement compared to digging out new space out of the ground.

I wonder if neighbors get suspicious about all this digging out of a space underneath the house.

[Glenn E.]

I wonder if neighbors get suspicious about all this digging out of a space underneath the house.

I've found that if you answer "bodies" every time the neighbors ask what all the digging is about that they stop asking.

[Moses Botbol]

What's the average cost and how many bottles does it hold?

[Tom Archer]

Living in a house built in 1869, I have the benefit of a proper cellar underneath; but as I am now running out of space, I am looking at the construction of a second cellar.

The spiral cellar idea is ingenius, but horribly expensive; at over £11/bottle for the largest size, and doubtless more for the smaller units.

I am currently working on a plan to build a maturation cellar for my younger wines, which will be essentially a concrete room, with a ceiling some 3 feet below the surface.

The economies of scale are huge for this type of project, but I am currently projecting a build cost of around £12,000 - £15,000 for a cellar that can hold 6,000 bottles - a much more acceptable build cost of £2 - £2.50 per bottle.

Tom

[John M.]

Just curious about your design--are you going subterranean?. Is there any reference material out there on how to build a wine cellar? I've got a 95 year old house with a stone foundation-cellar and numerous "rooms" defined by stone walls as well. Temp is usually 40 to 60 F--so I'd need to control but with that range it can be done effeciently, plus I'd need a way to control that plus humidity. Has anyone out there built one themselves?

[Peter W. Meek]

... a concrete room, with a ceiling some 3 feet below the surface.

The economies of scale are huge for this type of project,...

Yes. Racking and shelving may be linear (price doubles to hold double the number of bottles), but total bottles is nearly a square relationship to increasing size (doubling the horizontal dimensions of the room quadruples the number of bottles). You do lose some for aisles, and if it gets really big, for pillars to support the roof, but adding volume to the room is cheap by comparison to adding new rooms later. If your local water table is not too close to the surface, you might even go another level deeper and REALLY increase the volume, as well as improving the volume-to-surface ratio (which should improve the temperature stability -- square/cube law). Even at three feet below grade, I would add 4 to 6 inches of styrofoam insulation over the roof. Ordinarily, three feet below grade is considered fairly stable, but you are going to be insulating that three feet of earth from the earth below by inserting 7-8 feet of air (and wine), and that might allow it to warm significantly from the summer sun. The insulation would be cheap to add during construction, but adding it later would be expensive.

My cellar is also a concrete room, but it is at basement level and under a part of the house, which means the top foot or so is above ground level, and two of the walls are shared with the rest of the basement. I have to actively chill my cellar. That does mean that access is easy; I can roll a cart right into the cellar to bring in cases. Easy access may not be an issue for you if this cellar is only for long-term aging.

John M.:
Yes, my cellar is in a similar situation to yours, although mine was new construction rather than an existing house. I have 12 to 21 inch thick concrete on the two outside walls, and 12" block on the shared walls with the cavities entirely filled with mortar and reinforcing rod. Within, I have styrofoam insulation and sheathing, covered by redwood racks for about 180 cases or bottle equivalents. When you are discussing the cellar with your builder, be sure he isn't thinking of a tasting room where the comfort of people is more important than the "comfort" of the wine. A good cellar is cold and clammy (by human standards); not very pleasant as a place to sit around and socialize. Still, I do have a table and one chair in mine, where I sit to do my wine cataloging; I wear a sweater or jacket if I'm going to be in there for very long.

[Eric Menchen]

I've taken significant steps towards a proper cellar this week, having purchased 600 bottles worth of racking and a refrigeration unit. Someone was moving and put the stuff up for sale on craigslist. It was a bit of a challenge getting it home. I've met with one builder, but need to do more planning and meet with others to get the space built out.

[Andy Velebil]

Uh oh, the slippery slope has started. Once done you'll fill it up in no time, so be sure to make it a little bigger so you have room to grow. Or a better solution is to call us when it gets full and we'll come help you drink it down a bit

[Eric Menchen]

Started? I've been sliding down that slope for a good while. Now I'm just worried that there might be a cliff before the bottom.

[Glenn E.]

Now I'm just worried that there might be a cliff before the bottom.

There is. You can tell you're nearing the cliff when you get to the walk-in cellar.

[Andy Velebil]

Started? I've been sliding down that slope for a good while. Now I'm just worried that there might be a cliff before the bottom.

Oh yes, it will get worse as you won't be able to stand looking at empty bins in your cellar and the need to fill them will consume you and your pocket book

[Russ K]

i know that feeling, only at 35% capacity, I am freaking out!
Good luck Eric, hope you got a steal of a deal!