When you are passionate about wine you start to collect it … and when you begin collecting it you need a place to store it.
A closet can easily be turned into a mini wine cellar to store your growing wine collection.
Consider the position of the cupboard or closet in relation to the outside walls of the house before you construct your wine cellar.
Avoid converting a closet against an outside wall into a wine cellar. The outside walls of your house or apartment can often be subject to wide fluctuations in temperature from summer to winter. Ideally, choose an internal closet where your wine will be able to be stored at a more constant temperature.
The speed and the degree of the temperature change are critical elements to successfully storing and aging wine. The gradual change of a just a few degrees between summer and winter doesn't matter. The same change each day will harm your wines by ageing them too rapidly.
A major rule when storing wine is to avoid large (or quick) temperature changes. You'll notice damage of this nature straight away from the sticky deposit that often forms around the capsule. Over time the continual expansion and contraction of the wine will damage the integrity of the cork. It's similar to having the cork pulled in and out again every day. When this occurs, tiny quantities of wine can be pushed out along the edge of the cork (between the cork and the bottle neck) allowing air to seep back in. Once the air is in contact with your wine the irreversible process of oxidation begins and your wine is ruined.
At 55º to 58ºF the wine will age gracefully, enabling it to fully develop as the winemaker intended. Higher temperatures will age wine more rapidly and cooler temperatures will slow the ageing process. The damage done to your wine will be irreversible if it is stored at a temperature above 82ºF for even a month.
The most difficult part of creating a wine cellar in a closet can be finding other places to store the original contents of the closet! Be strong ... sell / give away / auction / move all the present contents and start with an empty space!
Cheap wine racks can be purchased from a hardware store, online retailer or storage shop and you'll have a simple but very effective mini wine cellar.
Wine rack designs vary in bottle density; price variations have more to do with aesthetics than efficiency.
Individual racking is the most convenient for selecting bottles. If you place racks against only one wall of the closet you may still have floor or shelf space available for wines that you purchase by the case.
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