There’s a science to selecting the right wine cellar cooling unit, even if you’re refrigerating a smaller space that doesn’t require much cooling. Part of maintaining a healthy home is to design energy efficient living areas, and if your wine cellar cooler is too big …
Wine is perishable, so proper wine storage is critical to maintaining its delicate flavour and bouquet. The manner in which wine is stored impacts the way it tastes when served. Collectors have no control over how their wine was made, but after purchasing the product …
Experts recommend that wine cellar designers choose all the same type of wood when planning and building a wine cellar.
Popular selections are All Heart Rosewood, cherry wood wine rack, and maple wine racks, or mahagony wine cellars. Pricing on these woods is done to order and are subject to market fluctuation.
The top three types of wood for wine cellars are walnut, redwood, and mahogany; but there are several others species that are also suitable in the wine cellar’s high moisture refrigerated environment.
Mahogany – Wine cellars are frequently built with durable mahogany. The hardwood has a moderately coarse grain pattern. For the most part, the grain pattern is straight but can be slightly interlocked in some cases. This species of wood maintains its structural form in humid wine cellars. Grand Mahogany is a plantation grown hardwood that is extremely attractive. With its uniform color, it has a few slight variations that go from medium to pale pink.
Having a mahogany wine rack in your cellar is a versatile wood that is comparable to sapele and cherry with its hardness, density, and grain texture. In regards to its durability and stability, you can easily match it up to sapele, hard maple, or cherry wood wine rack examples and find it compares well.
Walnut – An extremely hard wood, walnut is another excellent choice for use in wine cellar construction. Walnut is highly resistant to shrinkage or warping. It’s also heavy and resilient. Walnut is an all-around popular choice for woodworking. It has a fine texture and works extremely well with hand and power tools. Walnut is prized for use in furniture, cabinets, cutting boards, gunstocks, and a multitude of other projects. It is a popular choice for turning and carving. Walnut hardwood trees bear nuts by the same name, and the wood is a magnificent option for building custom wine cellars.
Redwood. The best wood for wine cellars is widely considered to be redwood. The trees flourish best in humid air, and they have natural oils that ensure that the wood maintains its form for many years, because the oils repel moisture. There is an option of All-Heart Redwood or Premium Redwood. The least expensive of the two is Premium Redwood, and yet it is just as durable as All-Heart Redwood.
Cherry. Another dense premium hardwood suitable for a custom wine cellar, freshly cut cherry is often very pale, but the wood oxidizes to its famously favorable rich brown red colour in time. Cherry wood is valued for its appearance and straight grain in manufacturing fine furniture, particularly desks, tables and chair. This type of hardwood has a nice grain as well as unique richness and warmth. The stiff and strong wood is reported to work easily with both hand and machine tools. European and American black cherries are reported to be comparable in many aspects, but the latter is more plentiful.
Red Oak – With a classic course texture, red oak is a heavy, mostly straight-grained hardwood with high shock resistance.
White Oak is another type of hardwood that’s frequently used in the construction of a custom wine cellar. This is sometimes a plywood veneer. Using oak largely comes down to a matter of taste and colour preferences. Oak is regarded as one of the most beautiful woods to work with because of its grain pattern and character. Oak is used in many other woodworking applications; its hardness is rated as medium, and its weight is high.
Pine is a popular and economical softwood for various uses and lends a rustic appearance when used to build furniture, but pine is actually a poor choice for wine cellars. Pine is not an option in cellars that have a climate-controlled system because it is soft and warps in such humid conditions.
The walls are built with wood and often the flooring, as well. In most wine cellars, the wine racks are also typically wood, such as Premier Cru 7-ft wine racks. Only certain types of wood are able to tolerate the climate-controlled atmosphere in wine cellars, and they are the only kinds that should be used in custom wine cellar construction. A wine cellar cooling unit from a major manufacturer such as CellarPro, EuroCave-Inoa, or CellarCOOL is added to custom wine cellars, to maintain the ideal temperature for wine. The wood and cooling unit in a wine cellar are the major components.
Get started today on a custom wine cellar built by experts who specialize in creating the perfect storage setting for wine collections. Contact Rosehill Wine Cellars at 1-888-253-6807. The size and type of wine cellar you have determines which wine cellar cooling unit our professionals recommend, whether CellarPro, EuroCave, CellarCOOL, or another brand.
Wine cellar cooling units can rightly be considered the cornerstone of a proper wine storage environment. There are many other factors that impact the effectiveness of a wine cooling unit, however. The following are more facts about wine cellar cooling units, including information about other …
If you have a wine cellar, a wine cellar cooling unit is essential. The entire point of a wine cellar is to provide the right environment in which to store wine. The cooling unit is the component that does the most to accomplish that crucial …
Wine cellar construction is a specialized niche. As the experts know, installing the perfect refrigeration system is essential, to preserve wine. Getting the selection of a wine cooling unit right is directly linked to thermal load calculation. Engineers calculate thermal load based on specifics provided about your particular wine cellar. Even after a wine cellar has been built according to the correct specifications, the time comes when regular inspections are needed. During wine cellar inspections, the use of thermal imagery can determine whether the conditions of the cellar plus the wine cooling unit still provide the ideal environment for wine storage.
What factors are considered in calculating thermal load?
Some of the factors considered in calculating thermal load won’t change but others can be affected over time, creating
an altered environment. First, there are wine cellar specifications about the permanent structure, such as height of the cellar and the square footage and type of glass, if any. The following are among the other things considered when calculating thermal load:
Why wine cellar inspections are important
The answers about a wine cellar at the time it is built can change for many different reasons, impacting how ideally the wine cooling unit may be for the space. In addition, wine cooling units themselves eventually need to be replaced. They harder the cooling system has to work to maintain the right temperature, the sooner it will deteriorate.
Because of the changes that may exist, including those shaped by time, wine cellar inspections are important. For example, insulation may no longer provide the same level of efficiency at keeping out heat. A wine collection is an investment that needs to be protected, and diligence is important, to prevent valuable wine from being spoiled.
Thermal imagery is new technology that can be used to determine where heat may be coming from in a wine cellar and whether the environment is still maintained at the desired temperature and humidity range.
Does your wine cellar need an inspection?
Wine cellars have become more than dark, dank storage rooms for fine wine. In modern times, they are often enjoyed as places to bring friends and sample the wine. Another reason inspections may be needed is the addition of lighting. Contact the experts at Rosehill Wine Cellar, whether you need wine cellar construction or a professional wine cellar inspection. Don’t forget: Thermal load calculation is not a “one and done” venture.