How to create a wine cellar on a budget

In our last article, we talked about the wine cellar pod, a good solution to preserve your home wine collection in the best way even if you don’t have much space available. However, while undoubtedly an interesting solution, it is certainly not for all budgets. Fortunately, there are other methods for keeping your precious bottles in the best way and for creating a wine cellar on a budget.

The delicate art of wine conservation

As we have already seen in our article on the 5 tips for storing wine at home, there are some rules to respect in order to keep our favourite bottles at the optimal quality level; wine is a delicate product and has unique organoleptic characteristics and to taste them all when we decide to open that bottle that we have kept in store for the occasions we must take care of it.

That’s why not every corner of the house is good for letting the wine rest, but it is better to carefully choose one that helps us to respect all the appropriate rules, namely the absence of direct lights and sources of heat, a constant temperature, a humid environment and the possibility to keep the bottles tilted.

To build a DIY wine cellar on a budget: what to consider

Undoubtedly, the use of environments already present in the house is the best solution to save on the creation of a space used for storing wine.

First, think about what is the best space can be used as a cellar: obviously, if you have a basement or a tavern the first choice falls on those. However, it is also possible with some foresight to create a perfect environment for wine, perhaps in a room at home, as a pantry, a closet or even a wardrobe. The important thing is that the chosen environment respects the rules to keep the organoleptic characteristics of the product intact, that is, a dark and protected environment with a constant temperature.

Make sure in particular that you can maintain a fairly constant temperature, meaning never too cold or too hot and above all without sudden changes, which can disastrously ruin the wine. The ideal average temperature for storage ranges between 11 and 15°C (10-12° for white wines, 13-15° for red wines).

To keep the temperature constant, an air conditioning system is recommended and you must make sure that the percentage of humidity always remains around 70-80%.

The humidity level is one of the key points of an environment suitable for conservation: the high value is necessary to maintain a humidity value close to that present inside the bottle. These values ​​can generally be easily maintained if you have a basement or a real cellar, while if you want to use another type of space for this purpose you can get a special humidifier.

In choosing the right environment for our wine cellar on a budget, it is also important to ensure that the amount of light can be controlled. In the case of a room, it is good that it is without windows or that it has the possibility of being kept at least in dim light. The most used solutions in these cases are the closets or even cupboards with doors, so as to keep the light out.

As for the space needed, that depends largely on you and how wide your collection of bottles is: if the number of wines to be kept is not very high, you can safely opt for home solutions such as wardrobes or a dedicated shelf inside the pantry. The important thing is that you not only have the space to keep the bottles upright but that you can lay them on their side or keep them in a transversal position since this is the best way to store them.

Wine cellar on a budget: easier than you might think

As we have just seen, creating a wine cellar on a budget is easier than you might think. Provided you don’t have an infinite collection of bottles, making a space in your home without spending a fortune is easy enough. Now that you know how, why not buy your next collectable bottle? We advise you to start with an excellent Carat IGP by Bressan, you will not regret it!