For The Love Of Port

I am only asking this as a theoretical question and am not helping any new company or any other dubious reason for asking, but if we were to build the perfect wine holding/aging temperature controlled cabinet, what would that be? How many bottles? Hold various sizes etc? Size or finish of the cabinet? Does it matter what side the door opens? etc.

This is just for discussion sake ... obviously, focused on Port storage.

Hmmm.... personally, I think I wouldn't waste too much time thinking about the perfect cabinet. Because the cabinet would be standing in my perfect wine cellar. And the cellar would be in Vila Nova de Gaia and holds approx. 3,000 pipas. My biggest concern would be how to keep the bus-loads of tourists away from my treasures...

On a more serious note: Port-Wine-storage-wise, my life is a mess. Living in the Cayman Islands, where you have limited supply of port, incredible heat and humidity, together with astronomical high electricity bills and the constant threat of hurricanes, I learned the hard way not to store too much port. In 2004, Hurricane Ivan washed away my house and my port collection - which wasn't large, but had a lot of emotional value, as some of the bottles had been quite a long time in the family of my Portuguese ex-wife... Now I have some bottles at friend's places in Portugal and in Germany... but I learned not to make any long-term-storage plans for port when you live in the tropics...

Therefore I have here a little wine-fridge for maybe 25 bottles and a wine rack for 16 bottles... That's all... And I try not to have any wine stored for more than 12 months... I hope that Portugal or Germany win the EURO 2012, so that I have a reason to open my DALVA Golden White 1952... and my FONSECA 85 for the semi-final...

Just a fun-fact for the guys out there that think living in the Caribbean is like living in paradise...: The only Colheita available in this country is the NOVAL 1995. As I like Colheita a lot, I drink it a lot. I don't think that many people on this planet have had more bottles of the NOVAL 1995 than I had... :) Even if it is a young Colheita, it's luckily pretty good and affordable (approx. USD 48.00 - which is cheap when you consider that the cheapest Ruby and Tawny here cost already more than USD 20).

So, but now I lean back, wait for the serious guys to give some intelligent answers to Roy's question and have some popcorn. And deep inside me, I will feel the jealousy for the people in the US, England and all the other countries that can easily buy and store port for generations to come...

Hmm... I'd say the perfect Port storage cabinet is one that's in my house!

I have three of these things, and easily the best one is my Eurocave. So working from that, there are a few things I'd do to improve it.

I find that my Eurocave 283 is too small. The "283" will allegedly hold 260 bottles when properly configured, but I filled mine will rolling shelves so in reality it only holds 9 x 12 + 1 x 11 + 2 x 22 + magnum shelf (holds 9) for a capacity of 163 bottles and 9 magnums. Why the varying numbers?

The rolling shelves are perfect and hold 12 bottles each. They roll smoothly, hold the bottles in place even when not full, and don't waste any space. The unit is exceptionally well-designed for these shelves.

The single wooden shelf is structural, but poorly designed in that it only holds 11 bottles - 6 in front and 5 in back. It should be designed to hold 12 as well. Also, the wooden shelves and the metal shelves don't mix well and cause wasted space when used in the same cabinet together. To fix that, there needs to be an option for a metal structural shelf that integrates with the metal rolling shelves. I'm sort of assuming that the wooden structural shelf integrates fine with other wooden shelves.

The pair of 22-bottle shelves that I have are wood but non-structural, and space poorly with the metal rolling shelves so I stack bottles on them to fit 22. Ideally the unit would be an inch or two higher so that those 2 non-structural wooden shelves could be replaced by 4 metal rolling shelves.

The magnum shelf is the compressor shelf at the bottom of the unit and is about as well-designed as it can be, but could still use another half inch of clearance so that the magnums would stack more easily - right now they're pretty tightly wedged in. This need might go away if the two non-structural wood shelves were replaced by metal rolling shelves as the metal shelves might give the magnum shelf that little bit of extra clearance that it needs.

Why rolling shelves? Well if you're storing your Port in a refrigerator, it is probably because it isn't in cases and is an assortment of bottles. If you're at all like me, you probably have lots of odds & ends and want to be able to pull out a shelf and see what's on it. Even if I kept a spreadsheet of where everything is located in my refrigerators, I'd still want the ability to pull out a shelf and show the bottles to others. Thus the need for the rolling shelves.

The last change I'd make is an external temperature display. C'mon... an LCD or LED display is cheap and it could just be embedded in the door. I have to open the door to check the temp on mine.

That's it. You can get the Eurocave with a smoked glass door, but I don't see the need. It's expensive and at least for me isn't an improvement. I guess it would let me see the temp without opening the door, but is that really worth the $700 they want for a glass door?

You could argue for a larger capacity, but the height and weight of my current unit are about right. If I needed more capacity, I'd just buy two and sit them side-by-side. I wouldn't argue against making it a little taller so that it could hold 15 or 16 rolling shelves, but that would make it a non-standard size when compared to regular refrigerators.

My second unit pales in comparison to my Eurocave. But then again it was 1/4 the cost. I keep my VPs in the Eurocave and my Colheitas in the second unit. The second unit's shelves are wire, don't roll, don't hold odd-shaped bottles well, and don't fit magnums at all. It doesn't have a structural shelf like the Eurocave, so it's extremely sensitive to the level of the floor. In my case the door closes and seals okay but isn't entirely square. The second unit is also significantly noisier. Luckily they're both in a separate room with a door so you can't hear it in the rest of the house.

My third unit is a Danby 56 and is simply too small. It was the first one I bought and I didn't realize at the time that a fridge that holds 40-ish bottles is basically useless for storing Port. Right now it's being used to store Douro wines, but I can see the day when those are going to get kicked out to make room for more Port. The Danby's shelves slide (they don't have rollers, they just slide out) but are made of some thin wood and so they're getting warped from the weight of 12 bottles. I'd rank it slightly about the second unit, but nowhere near the Eurocave.

My list of requirements would be:

- compressor based cooling & high insulation value (cheap to run)
- flexibilty in interior - shoud store multiple bottle shapes and sizes and 6 and 12 bottle wooden cases.
- efficient space usage. It should be easy to use all available space in the cabinet
- enough shelves - at most two layers of bottles on a single shelf.
I sometimes find myself taking out a lot of bottles just to get or find a bottle on the bottom of a stack in my current cabinets;
- no glass in the door - bad insulation value, UV issues and I simply do not see any added value
- simple temperature data logging feature (with battery backup)
- decent interior lighting - not just a single bulb in the top of the cabinet

However, owning a couple of cabinets myself -- no cellar under the house ;( -- I do have two issues with storage cabinets. First of all, you will never have enough capacity and adding new cabinets will become a normal part of life . Second, the cost per bottle per year of a mid-range, mid-size cabinet, based on a life expectancy of 10 years and current energy prizes, is around EUR 1/$1.30. That's pretty steep. Converting (part of) a room to a "walk-in" style cabinet can be done for less than the price of two mid-range wine fridges. But it will provide much more storage space and hugely improved energy efficieny over cabinets. One disadvantage of course: you can't easily move it.

Roel.

Roel B wrote: based on a life expectancy of 10 years

I'd be upset if my wine fridges were not still going in 10 years. My dad has had two eurocaves going strong since the mid-90s, with just the occasional charcoal filter change. Tastvin do a 10-yr guarantee on their cabinets, i think, so i'd be surprised if they weren't figuring on a lot longer than that in terms of life expectancy.

Converting part of a room into a walk-in cellar is fine, but when that room has cost many hundreds of euros/pounds/dollars per square foot, it doesn't strike me as a "cheap" way of doing things!

Glenn E. wrote: That's it. You can get the Eurocave with a smoked glass door, but I don't see the need. It's expensive and at least for me isn't an improvement. I guess it would let me see the temp without opening the door, but is that really worth the $700 they want for a glass door?

Glass door depends on circumstances. Less efficient, and i still would not want to leave the unit in direct sunlight - even with the UV filter. But there's no doubt it can look better - at least by comparison to the basic finishes on a lot of models you find in Europe. So if by necessity the unit is in your living room or hallway as opposed to your garage or a spare room, aesthetics can make quite a difference.

Rob C. wrote: Converting part of a room into a walk-in cellar is fine, but when that room has cost many hundreds of euros/pounds/dollars per square foot, it doesn't strike me as a "cheap" way of doing things!

You'll need space for the wine fridges as well, so the cost of the room can be left out of the equation. And in the end, it's just better economics to convert (part of a room) to a walk-in cabinet if you're going to end up with a large number of wine fridges after a few years. The other option, filling the same floor space with several wine cabinets is just more expensive, both in initial investment and energy economy. Also, you'll be able to use a split airco/heatpump and have the heat transported outside instead of into the room, adding to the energy efficiency.

Sure, it's easier and cheaper to start with a single cabinet. But my point is that, in most cases, it won't be just a single cabinet for long .

Roel.

Spoke to a builder this weekend about finishing our basement with a walk-in cooler

To the main question of the thread, an important part is being able to hold a variety of different sized bottles, from typical 750s to short squat 750s, from 375s to magnums, and then that strange 500ml you might have.

Rob C. wrote:

Roel B wrote: based on a life expectancy of 10 years

I'd be upset if my wine fridges were not still going in 10 years. My dad has had two eurocaves going strong since the mid-90s, with just the occasional charcoal filter change. Tastvin do a 10-yr guarantee on their cabinets, i think, so i'd be surprised if they weren't figuring on a lot longer than that in terms of life expectancy.

I do agree that most fridges will probably run for longer than 10 years. However, I reason that 10 years is a reasonable life expectancy for cost calculations. Even with a technical lifespan (significantly) over 10 years, there is an economical lifespan to consider. Fridges gain energy efficiency each year. Also, the MTBF (mean time between failure) for a compressor is not infinite. The older the fridge, the more hours it has run, the greater the chance of a breakdown. Which probably means a new fridge as repairs to the cooling system are usually not cost-effective. I would not be surprised if this averages out somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10 years, give or take a few years.

Insurers (over here at least) write off this kind of equipment in 5 years. The expected lifespan for warranty claims based on the EU consumer protection rules for fridges, based on jurisprudence, is somewhere around 6 to 8 years for fridges.

Based on all the arguments above, I therefore argue that 10 years is probably a good life expectancy for a wine cabinet and storage cost calculations. In a business environment I would probably even argue for a shorter period.

Roel.

Nice job Roel!

I would say an important design aspect, both from the point of view of keeping running costs down and preserving the contents, is to ensure a high degree of insulation.

Also to ensure that the chiller is not constantly cutting in and cutting out, plunging the temperature of the bottles by a couple of degrees before waiting for them to warm up again.

I have been concerned in the past at the ullage levels of bottles sold at auction, that had previously been stored in temperature controlled rooms. My suspicion is that proprietary chiller units designed to keep beer cool tend to cause constant intraday temperature fluctuations, which whilst relatively small, are not good over a period of years.

Tom Archer wrote:I
I have been concerned in the past at the ullage levels of bottles sold at auction, that had previously been stored in temperature controlled rooms. My suspicion is that proprietary chiller units designed to keep beer cool tend to cause constant intraday temperature fluctuations, which whilst relatively small, are not good over a period of years.

I am amazed at auctions, as almost every bottle is listed as coming from a temperature controlled storage. Sure it may have been when THEY pulled it out from the current owner. I have a strong suspicion that most never saw temperature control until the current owner bought them or installed a unit themselves (or put them in an offsite). When you think about it, active cooling is still something relatively new in the wine world. How many people (including producers world-wide) in the 1970's or prior had actively cooled cellars?

Better question, actively cooled shipping containers for shipping wine are even newer. So all that wine shipped many years ago was all passive and seems to have survived just fine.

I would say the bigger issue is with some coolers, especially beer coolers, where a lot of vibration is produced. I suspect that probably isn't very good over the long term and may contribute to bottles not showing well.

Christian Gollnick wrote: I hope that Portugal or Germany win the EURO 2012, so that I have a reason to open my DALVA Golden White 1952... and my FONSECA 85 for the semi-final...

Oh well, neither Portugal or Germany were in the EURO 2012 FINAL but both teams reached the Semi-Final
I hope you have found a reason to celebrate with the 1952 Golden White anyway

Hello Mario, nope...nope...nope... I was still way too upset on Sunday to enjoy such a nice bottle... I didn't watch the final at all, but went to the cinema instead to watch a nice movie (Madagascar 3) with my son... However, late in the evening I couldn't hold back and opened a bottle of the 20 year old Tawny from Sandeman... After half a bottle I was no longer upset with football, the world and life as such... Everything was good again. Thanks, Mr. Sandeman....

Christian Gollnick wrote:Hello Mario, nope...nope...nope... I was still way too upset on Sunday to enjoy such a nice bottle... I didn't watch the final at all, but went to the cinema instead to watch a nice movie (Madagascar 3) with my son... However, late in the evening I couldn't hold back and opened a bottle of the 20 year old Tawny from Sandeman... After half a bottle I was no longer upset with football, the world and life as such... Everything was good again. Thanks, Mr. Sandeman....

Christian Gollnick wrote: ... However, late in the evening I couldn't hold back and opened a bottle of the 20 year old Tawny from Sandeman... After half a bottle I was no longer upset with football, the world and life as such... Everything was good again. Thanks, Mr. Sandeman....

Good to learn that. Salut. Wine makes miracles
By coincidence, today I was also sent the following statement. This is a good one.
Money can't buy happiness
but can buy Wine, which is pretty much the same.

Christian,

Be apprised that Mario began his career in the wine business, working for Sandeman. This was before he worked for the IVDP, of course.