The Wine Cellar

I’m happy to report that our remodeling priorities are in good order. Our 100 year old craftsman-style fixer is only three years into its rebirth, and already it boasts a new workshop, a home-theater, and a wine cellar. (This is a homeowner remodel - no hired contractors here.) Trissa has her fingers crossed that the kitchen will be next.

I admit to having nearly zero knowledge in the wine department. Becoming a wine expert, I’ve realized, requires years of attention and dedication. But all expertise has a starting point, and ours begins with a nearly empty 300 bottle-capacity basement cellar built from scratch.

The cellar is a basement room that measures 6 feet by 5 feet. It is a passive cellar (no cooling or heating equipment) and is well insulated to help attenuate any major temperature fluctuation. The room is situated in the corner of the basement and has a temperature-related concern in that the ceiling is also the floor of the front porch to the house, which is fully exposed to the elements. But, on this year’s hottest summer day the cellar temperature reached only 58 degrees. And, as I write this in the dead of winter, the cellar thermometer reads 42 degrees (a bit too cold; I’m considering a ceramic heater running on a thermostat to maintain an even 52 degrees.) If I were to do it again, I’d use sprayed-in foam insulation for an R-value boost in lieu of fiberglass batting. I used Icynene-brand foam insulation (our single outside contractor experience) in the theater and it’s pretty nifty stuff.

Several of the details that make the cellar interesting involve the materials I used. All of the wood used for racking and trim is fir that I recycled from old-growth 2x4s salvaged from a wall I removed upstairs. I spent more than a few evenings ripping this lumber into the five hundred five-sided sticks needed for the south rack. The west rack doubles as a counter and has a self-poured concrete top. The north-facing interior wall has an inset “window” that frames a mural of the Seattle skyline, painted by my sister.

Finally, the door on the east wall is a vintage Victorian piece purchased at a salvage yard for $250. It came with seven layers of paint which I removed over a two month period. About a month into this chore I got smart and disassembled the door entirely into its component pieces; this speeded the stripping work and resulted in a much stronger door in the end.

For me, constructing a wine cellar served several purposes. As one of the first projects in our remodeling master plan, the cellar was a small project that enabled me to hone some of my basic carpentry skills. As a “theme room”, it is a great conversation piece - our friends and neighbors who live their lives without wine cellars are very curious and always impressed with this room. (Those same folks are recently more interested in our now-complete home theater…) In the long term though, the cellar promises to supply our dining table with an endless supply of good wine, and to be the focal point of our new hobby.