How to build a home wine cellar

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, especially when it comes to fine wine.

The number of times I’ve discovered bottles at a restaurant or bar, which later turned out to be extraordinary vintages, only to find out weeks, or months afterwards that they’re essentially impossible to find again or are now prohibitively expensive, is all too frequent. I’m forever trying to take photos of wine labels now and have also joined the ranks of Vivino (the wine search-and-rating app,) which has become an almost ritualistic thing to check wherever I go.

Over the years, I have considered the possibility of having a Spiral Cellar installed in my kitchen. This ingenious and now somewhat iconic design certainly gives any home some serious gravitas and the typical cost of a three-metre-deep cellar, which can hold up to 1600 bottles is around £34-40k, taking up to 10 days to install. No doubt, it’s a considerable outlay, but also a sound investment too.

However, this January a chance opportunity arose for me to take the plunge and start building up a more serious wine collection at home. I say by chance, as I finally decided to clear out the modestly sized, previously inaccessible coal cellar of my Victorian house, solely with the intention of decluttering… and the potential I found down there was rather exciting indeed.

Fine Wine in a Victorian Basement?

Traditionally the final resting place for rusting bikes and other junk we no longer need, but can’t quite say goodbye to, the suburban basement is actually a surprisingly good environment to store wine in optimum conditions, if treated properly. Mine was particularly damp, mouldy and musty, but once it was cleared out of the junk and rotten cardboard boxes, and the bare brick walls and floor covered with a breathable ‘tanking slurry’, (a messy job, but ultimately satisfying,) things started to take shape.

'When building a home cellar one of the most vital elements to consider is the temperature: not just it being too hot, or too cold, but ensuring that temperature remains consistent throughout ageing – so the kitchen and garage are off limits!' explains Jake Curran, Fine Wine Buyer for Corney & Barrow, one of the UK’s leading wine merchants. 'The best temperature for long term ageing is between 10-15°C degrees.

'The key thing to avoid is a big fluctuation in temperature,' concurs Ben Godfrey, Buyer for Mr Wheeler Fine Wine. 'It doesn’t want to be anywhere near getting close to freezing in the winter and then jumping to 20+ degrees in the summer: that’s a quick route to ruined wine!'

'Additionally, lighting is a super important, consideration', continues Curran, 'as too much – (especially artificial,) can damage the wine and its aromas – think sun bleaching, but for wine. A cool, dark cupboard or under the stairs are great options, but ideally a dedicated wine fridge would be the best choice.'

Wine fridges come in all manner of sizes and capacities and my advice here is to buy the largest one you can feasibly accommodate, with some companies, such as La Sommeliere offering single cabinets, with UV-resistant glass doors, which hold up to 250 75cl bottles, storing the wine at a set temperature between 5 and 20 degrees: some also have specific temperature zones for different styles of wine.

When it comes to conditioning and entire room or cellar however, then it’s worth considering a complete conditioning unit. One of the common drawbacks of storing wine at home is controlling the amount of moisture in the air, particularly if the aesthetics of the bottle are important to the collector. Damp will begin to affect the labels over time, leading them to deteriorate and in some cases, fall off completely. So, if the look of your collection is as important as the contents, Eurocave have developed the ingenious Inoa cellar-conditioning unit, which comes in two sizes, (for up to 25 and 50 cubic metre spaces,) which circulates the perfectly chilled air around the bottles to ensure any prized vintages are kept in great condition.

After buying a few combined digital thermometer and hydrometers to place in different areas of my newly tanked cellar, remarkably, it turned out that the conditions were a stable 12-14.5 degrees, with a reasonable humidity of about 80% – nearly the optimum for storing wine for long, slow maturation. Also, because it's subterranean, it’s free from any sunlight or major vibrations. So, a great starting point.

Perfecting that Cellar Look and Feel

Once I got the humidity under control (using a dehumidifier set to stabilise at 70%,) it was time to start thinking about how to utilise the space properly. There’s a wealth of options in this department, from the traditional latticed racking, through to wooden upright racks, (worth exploring family-run Tanglewood Wine for some smart options,) and perhaps the ultimate in authenticity: cast limestone displays, from the Stone Cellar Companybuilt to mimic the limestone from the Loire valley, which helps to keep a consistent temperature and humidity.

My starting point was four, walnut finish wooden upright racks, each one holding 28 bottles, (I’ll no doubt add more as the collection grows,) which allow for the bottles to lay at a slight downward angle. 'Keeping the wine in contact with the cork ensures that it does not dry out, shrink and ultimately let in oxygen, the wine killer,' explains Corney & Barrow’s Jake Curran.

I’ve illuminated the cabinets with some low output, rechargeable lights that operate with a 30-second PIR movement sensor, and my cellar is now fit for storing a maximum of 250 regular sized bottles, with a small brick shelf to hold larger magnum formats.

Which wines to drink and when…

But what to start filling it with? This is of course where personal preference comes in, but also a specific distinction. My cellar is one for personal enjoyment, rather than to store wines for investment purposes. If the latter is something you’d be looking to do, then it’s far better to build a ‘portfolio collection’ – a bespoke virtual cellar with a wine merchant, such as Berry Bros & Rudd, Mr Wheeler Fine Wine, or Corney & Barrow, which offer professional storage facilities.

Berry’s charge annual storage fees in a conditioned warehouse of £17.28 per 12-bottle case (discounted to £15.12 if you become a member of its Cellar Plan,) and that way you can keep track of the authenticity of your wine’s maturation before selling it, but also buy ‘in-bond’ – meaning that you don’t pay the VAT on the wine, unless it is removed from the warehouse. It also opens up the opportunity to purchase ‘En-Primeur’: future wine from specific high-end Chateaus released annually, which usually arrives at your bonded cellar of choice a couple of years after the vintage has been bottled.

My tastes tend to be quite conservative: bold Bordeaux-style reds, with a special fondness for the Left and Right Bank classics, such as Margaux, Pauillac, Pomerol and St-Émilion and big, voluptuous, buttery and unctuous whites - particularly Chardonnay-based.

No matter what your tastes are, one thing to consider is the drinking window of each wine. As a rule, wines such as white Burgundies tend to have a smaller window of maturation and don’t require as much aging, offering that beautifully rich and opulent profile pretty much straight off the bat, or after only a few years of cellaring. Bolder reds such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot-based blends, (which you’ll find across the Bordeaux region,) can be bright, fruity, tannic and a tad overly acidic at first, requiring more time in bottle to mellow and to allow secondary flavours and aromas to flourish. As such, they can develop wonderful complexity over decades in the right cellar… the difficulty is no to get too trigger happy and pop the corks before they’re truly ready!

My top picks for building your new home cellar:

White Wine

To Lay Down

To Drink/Keep:

To Drink Now:

This is a beautifully textured wine, from a small number of Aligoté vines planted in 1975 above the famous Mersault area. You’ll find a wonderful richness, including candied fruit, soft toffee, and a fresh citrus backbone, with a delicate touch of spice and butter. Drinking wonderfully now, until the end of 2026.

Red Wine

To Lay Down:

To Drink /Keep:

To Drink Now: