Trophy Cellar, or Working Cellar

Some people design cellars as carefully and aesthetically as they would any other room in the house, and intend it to be a showplace for guests. I even came across one woman that turned the cooler off because "it was too cold in there", so obviously priorities can be divided.

Others have less attractive cellars that are basically just a place to store wine, hopefully under good temperature and humidity conditions, and they can end up like your sock drawer - you know it is in there somewhere, you just aren't quite sure where (I fall into that category).

What is your situation? If you have wine in more than one situation, you can vote for more than one option.

Finally, at the bottom of the poll is an option to vote for cooling style, passive or active - whether it is a stand alone cooling unit, a converted refrigerator or a room that has a cooler built into the wall.

I had to select the "boxes stacked by the furnace" because it is the closest. I don't, however, have boxes stacked up. In my basement (which, by the way, is a real working basement - not a finished downstairs) I have a 100-bottle wine rack I got from a wine shop that went out of business, and some wooden boxes under my work table (which is next to the furnace) for the bottles that don't fit in the rack. Right now I have a total of 38 bottles, so not a large or proper cellar, but it works for us.

I started with a working showplace but over time it has become more 'working' and less 'showplace'. I have oak walls, ceiling and floor but no longer room for my tasting table and chairs. Last time in there, over the weekend, I think I saw a lacrosse stick; a few pictures on the floor waiting to hung; gifts, wrapped and not, waiting to be given; wine books; and all our extra wine glasses. There's bound to be some wine in there, too.
Great poll question, by the way.

I voted packrat, spread to more than 1 room, passive.

I have a dedicated room, racks on walls, bins in gaps. But there are also boxes and cases crammed in there. It is generally passive (below grade, 100+ year old basement, room is well insulated), though I have an AC rigged that gets run only in extended summer heat waves (never needed this year). But there are a few boxes outside, and about 20 cases of overflow in (cool, damp) basement at my office

Working cellar that shares space with other things in the unheated pantry. There's more temperature variation that I would prefer, but otherwise it works pretty well. Total cellar about 200 bottles, mostly dry red.

One cooler unit that doesn't hold as many bottles as advertised because of sliding shelves. Many boxes stacked against dining room wall, and overflowing to living room and a couple in the future home office space and about four or five boxes in the bedroom. Time to consume more and buy less.

I'm never quite sure whether my cellaring procedures obey me or I obey them, but because of my profession I have a dedicated cellar and tasting room, as well as two wine refrigertors, those mostly for wines scheduled to be tasted in the next few days or weeks. Also, because need sometimes dictates, wines stored in commercial sites in Paris, Geneva and New York. And then there are always a few bottles in the regular refrigerator for a relative who likes her wines cloyingly sweet!

I guess I should 'fess up to.

I started with a single room in the basement, set up with racks around the wall and a tableat the end with my wine books and a chair so I could do research there.

Step 2 - running low on room, so table and chair came out, and additional racking went down the middle of the room

Step 3 - (went to a cooling unit at this point, although the location didn't do badly as a passive cellar) - lost the aesthetic aspect completely as stacks of cases went against the racking.

Step 4 - overflow storage established (against the wishes of SWMBO) in downstairs bathroom and laundry room as the main cellar was up to about 3500 bottles and it was simply impossible to squeeze any more in. Threatened to invade my sanctun sanctorum (stereo room) which must have driven us to drink, as that was avoided and basement bathroom stock moved to laundry room.

Step 5 - (this one in planning stages only) - stop buying wine and drink out of the cellar! Friends indicate their willingness to do their part.....

I walled off and insulated a quarter of my unfinished basement to make a wine room. I built a cooling unit from an air conditioner. I have inexpensive racking for the bottles. Definitely a working cellar and not a trophy room.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Dedicated room, packrat style with temperature control. Now, it's actually pretty elegant for a garage cellar (I got half the third car garage for my cellar, Bob got the other half for his workshop), but our carpentry isn't up to the kind of racking you see on the Collector of the Month page in Wine Spectator, and our $75 Chinese air conditioner (intentionally disposable in case of failure) with the low setting disabled suffices for 'temperature control' about six months of the year--during the excessively warm and cold periods (when the continuously running furnace heats up the garage).