Wine cellars are built underground where no natural light occurs, so should you introduce windows into the space?
It’s a general rule to not include windows in your wine cellar. When aging and storing wine, it should be kept far from UV light and at certain levels of temperature and humidity. These aspects can be complicated by introducing windows to the cellar.
Read on to learn more about wine cellars, how they work, and why they shouldn’t have windows.
Going Underground
Vintners have been using wine cellars to store and age their wine for thousands of years. The practice can be traced back to ancient civilizations and it has long been proven as the most effective way to store wine.
This is because wine can be quite temperamental, and it comes with a strict set of requirements for its storage. It has to be kept cool and at a stable temperature with very little fluctuation, and there must be a certain level of humidity in the room.
In theory, an underground space is perfect for naturally accommodating these requirements. It’s insulated by the earth, kept far away from harmful sunlight, and not impacted by changes in temperature and air pressure brought on by opening doors and windows.
Around the 16th century, Benedictine monks started actively working to better the production and aging of wine. It came with a religious agenda attached, as the red wine they created was needed for their eucharistic rights, being used as the ‘Blood of Christ’.
Owing to the mass availability and popularity of wine, it became a staple of the Dark Age diet, likely overtaking water as the beverage of choice. In fact, wine would often be used to purify water, neutralizing any harmful bacteria found in the liquid.
As a result of this mass industry growth, increasingly larger wine cellars were required, to meet the capacity demands. Today, some of the biggest wine cellars in the world are also some of the oldest, and they use mostly the same methods vintners have for thousands of years.
In Moldova, a small nation in Europe, sits the largest wine cellar in the world – its size is comparable to that of a small city. It’s known as Milestii Mici, and it contains around two million bottles of wine.
This little-known nation is actually the least-visited country in all of Europe, and it’s somewhat of a hidden gem, especially for wine fans. You might of Italy or France as being at the top of the wine game, but you’d be wrong.
Moldova is also home to the world’s second-biggest wine cellar, Cricova, which also serves as a luxurious wine retreat. Bizarrely, the wine cellar itself is owned by Vladimir Putin, and it’s technically his collection of more than one million bottles of wine.
We Can Build It
With all the above information in mind, you can understand what it would take for you to build your own wine cellar. If you already have a basement space, great – but if you don’t, you’ll certainly need to have something constructed.
These days, wine cellars tend to be integrated with sophisticated technology, included refrigeration units, air conditioning systems, and humidifiers. The end goal is to create a space that is kept at a stable enough temperature to protect the wine.
Ideally, the entire underground structure will be totally isolated from the outside, which means no windows, and only one door. Any walls should be intensely insulated, as should doors.
While windows can exist in a wine cellar, they really shouldn’t let in much light at all. The UV rays are harmful to the wine, so you’ll need to tint or blackout the windows, or just completely remove them.
Ultimately, if you’re going to the lengths of building a wine cellar to house an expensive collection, you’re going to want to do it properly. After all, you can expect to spend anything from thirty to ninety thousand dollars to build a wine cellar from scratch.
This budget does include quite a lot, but it’s a hefty and considerable investment. You’ll need to accommodate lighting, insulation, storage units, technology, and of course, the construction of the space itself in your budget.
The sometimes exorbitant cost is why many people are bucking tradition and using above-ground wine storage solutions today. These include wine closets, specialized fridges, and professionally converted rooms.
You can read here about the options people have when creating a wine room in the comfort of their own home.