When you are passionate about wine you begin collecting 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 situated against an outside wall into a mini wine cellar. The outer walls of your house or apartment can frequently be subject to wide fluctuations in temperature. Ideally, choose an internal closet where your wine will be able to be stored at a more constant temperature.

The degree and the speed of the temperature change are critical to successfully storing and aging wine. A gradual change of a few degrees between summer and winter shouldn’t be a cause for concern. A similar change each day will hurt your wines and age them too quickly.

A major rule when storing wine is to avoid large (or quick) temperature changes. You’ll be aware of this damage straight away from the sticky deposit that often forms around the capsule. Over a period of time the continual contraction and expansion of the wine will damage the integrity of the cork. It’s just like having the cork removed and replaced 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. Your wine will be ruined once air comes in contact with your wine and the irreversible process of oxidation begins.

At 55º to 58ºF the wine will age as intended, enabling it to fully develop. Higher temperatures will age wine more rapidly and cooler temperatures will slow down the ageing process. Irreversible damage will occur if your wine is stored at a temperature above 82ºF for a month or more.

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! Don’t hesitate … get rid of all the present contents (one way or another) and start with a blank slate!

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 will vary in bottle density; price variations are more to do with aesthetics than efficiency.

Individual racking makes it easy to select bottles. If you have 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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