Building a home wine cellar from scratch may seem like a daunting process, but the first step that proverbially applies to climbing mountains applies to wine cellars, too. It starts when you collect your first bottle of wine and soon you’ll discover that your collection has grown so large that it requires its own wine cellar.

The cost of a well-constructed wine cellar can run to many thousands of dollars but so can a large capacity refrigerated wine cabinet, so you may find that building your own wine cellar can be the most economical and cost effective way of storing your wine.

Before you start building a wine cellar there are several things to consider.

The first cons should be temperature and the amount of natural light. Ensure the room is well insulated – extruded polystyrene insulation is ideal. Those living in a mild climate you may be able to create a passive cellar that requires no cooling system.

Wine cellars generall have thick walls. Two-by-six construction allows for better insulation, allowing the cellar to remain at a constant temperature. In an active (as opposed to passive) wine cellar, the temperature and humidity are maintained by a climate control system.

Temperature swings will quickly destroy your precious wine collection. Small temperature fluctuations from summer to winter will not damage the wine but those same fluctuations on a daily or weekly basis will cause your wine to age prematurely. Temperature should always be between 45 and 60 degrees F, and avoid direct sunlight. It is possible to build a wine closet or a wine cupboard at home that will have the required humidity level of between 50% and 80% that is ideal for all types of wines.

Your must avoid vibration when storing wine; it agitates the bottle and speeds up the chemical reactions taking place inside the bottle – and not in a good way.

Vibration is a major issue during the transportation and is the reason most shippers recommend allowing your wine to rest after extended travel. This is also important whenever you buy wine from a winery or even from your local wine outlet. Never take it home and pull the cork out without allowing it to rest. In fact, all wine should be put immediately into your cellar.

Note that it is not just your wine which is valuable; the cellar itself will improve the value of your home. So, the bigger and better your cellar, the more the value of your house goes up as well.

A wine cellar generally maintains a lower temperature compared to its surrounding living spaces and therefore must be treated differently in relation to those spaces. If your wine cellar requires cooling do not attempt to cool it by using a domestic air conditioning unit. Domestic air conditioning removes the humidity from the air and will quickly destroy your wine collection by drying out the corks. There are many brands of wine cellar cooling units available to cool any size wine cellar. Your wine cellar makes a personal statement about you, and will become the most important area in your home. This is the place where you can indulge your passion for fine wine and where you can display your precious acquisitions to friends and family. Click here to discover how to build a home wine cellar and, if you have the space, you could try incorporating a bar or a wine tasting area.