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Well stocked: Here's a wine-by-wine plan for building a home selection to meet any occasion. (Bill Hogan/Chicago Tribune) |
Whether your wine cellar is a six-bottle rack atop the refrigerator or a temperature-controlled subterranean vault with dozens of filled bins, the wines in it reveal a bit about you.
Some folks keep a few bottles at hand just for meals and snacks. Others invest in wine and drink little of what they collect. Wine can be a hobby, a trophy, a condiment.
But by and large, from modest to magnificent, most cellars contain wine that's destined to end up on the dining room table.
Ideally, any home wine cellar should hold an assortment of red, white and sparkling wines, in sundry styles and from a variety of regions around the world. Home cooking is more varied today than ever; wine collections need to be diverse as well. It's nice to have an Italian red for tonight's penne puttanesca, as there was an Aussie chardonnay for last evening's grilled swordfish with tropical fruit salsa.
Here I suggest a working 48-bottle (four cases) cellar that sports the several savors from the world of wine. As you use wines from it, replace them with similar bottlings. You can find well-made examples of nearly all these wines for $20 a bottle or less.
If you're starting from scratch because you are new to wine, my suggestions will help set a frame, but they may not be your taste. To begin filling your wine cellar, Amanda Crawford, auction director of Spectrum Wine Auctions in Irvine, Calif., advises to "make a friend of your local retailer by putting together a mixed case of a dozen different wines." As you sample through them, she says, "you'll get to know your palate and its preferences."
Augment the cellar with a few bottles for special eats or times: a tawny port, for example, or a dry sherry, and perhaps 2 to 3 half bottles of sweet wine, such as a late-harvest riesling. (Sparkling wine on hand for an unforeseen celebration is a given.) And throw in a boxed wine for cooking; white is the most flexible and oft used.
Proportion is key. Go heavy on true workaday food wines — French Macon white, for example, or good pinot noir. Always be mindful not to lay a heavy hand on the wallet to buy up an esoteric or niche wine that wows you just because it's at a good price. The first 10 bites of ice cream taste good too; not so the last 10.
Notes on cellar keeping
You should keep wine the same way you'd manage a teenager: downstairs, cool, on its side, in the dark and free from vibration.
Basements are best because they're generally cool. Humid conditions trump dry ones, but in any case, always lay the bottles on their sides to keep the corks moist. Darkness keeps harmful light from spoiling wine. Finally, avoid the jostling of nearby freezers, stairways or woofers.
If you do not have a basement, use the northeast corner of a closet or room (except the kitchen). An inoperative fireplace nook is also good because its mild downdraft helps keep temps cool.
More than anything else, steady temperature matters. Severe fluctuations of temperature during the year (very warm in summer, very cool in winter) are worse than a year-round temperature of 72 degrees. The optimum temperature is 55 degrees, but that usually comes with a cellar below ground level.
It's best not to store wine in open racks in the living area or (especially) in the kitchen. What you gain in ambiance, you lose in wine quality. Basically, the heat ruins the wine — and in short order.
A number of firms sell special, self-contained humidity- and temperature-controlled wine storage units designed for apartments or condominiums. Storing wine in these is ideal, especially for city dwellers. But constant opening and closing, combined with the machine's minute vibrations, can harm wine in the long term (4-5 years).
A basic cellar well stocked
Whites (20 bottles):
French:
2 Macon blanc
Some folks keep a few bottles at hand just for meals and snacks. Others invest in wine and drink little of what they collect. Wine can be a hobby, a trophy, a condiment.
But by and large, from modest to magnificent, most cellars contain wine that's destined to end up on the dining room table.
Ideally, any home wine cellar should hold an assortment of red, white and sparkling wines, in sundry styles and from a variety of regions around the world. Home cooking is more varied today than ever; wine collections need to be diverse as well. It's nice to have an Italian red for tonight's penne puttanesca, as there was an Aussie chardonnay for last evening's grilled swordfish with tropical fruit salsa.
Here I suggest a working 48-bottle (four cases) cellar that sports the several savors from the world of wine. As you use wines from it, replace them with similar bottlings. You can find well-made examples of nearly all these wines for $20 a bottle or less.
If you're starting from scratch because you are new to wine, my suggestions will help set a frame, but they may not be your taste. To begin filling your wine cellar, Amanda Crawford, auction director of Spectrum Wine Auctions in Irvine, Calif., advises to "make a friend of your local retailer by putting together a mixed case of a dozen different wines." As you sample through them, she says, "you'll get to know your palate and its preferences."
Augment the cellar with a few bottles for special eats or times: a tawny port, for example, or a dry sherry, and perhaps 2 to 3 half bottles of sweet wine, such as a late-harvest riesling. (Sparkling wine on hand for an unforeseen celebration is a given.) And throw in a boxed wine for cooking; white is the most flexible and oft used.
Proportion is key. Go heavy on true workaday food wines — French Macon white, for example, or good pinot noir. Always be mindful not to lay a heavy hand on the wallet to buy up an esoteric or niche wine that wows you just because it's at a good price. The first 10 bites of ice cream taste good too; not so the last 10.
Notes on cellar keeping
You should keep wine the same way you'd manage a teenager: downstairs, cool, on its side, in the dark and free from vibration.
Basements are best because they're generally cool. Humid conditions trump dry ones, but in any case, always lay the bottles on their sides to keep the corks moist. Darkness keeps harmful light from spoiling wine. Finally, avoid the jostling of nearby freezers, stairways or woofers.
If you do not have a basement, use the northeast corner of a closet or room (except the kitchen). An inoperative fireplace nook is also good because its mild downdraft helps keep temps cool.
More than anything else, steady temperature matters. Severe fluctuations of temperature during the year (very warm in summer, very cool in winter) are worse than a year-round temperature of 72 degrees. The optimum temperature is 55 degrees, but that usually comes with a cellar below ground level.
It's best not to store wine in open racks in the living area or (especially) in the kitchen. What you gain in ambiance, you lose in wine quality. Basically, the heat ruins the wine — and in short order.
A number of firms sell special, self-contained humidity- and temperature-controlled wine storage units designed for apartments or condominiums. Storing wine in these is ideal, especially for city dwellers. But constant opening and closing, combined with the machine's minute vibrations, can harm wine in the long term (4-5 years).
A basic cellar well stocked
Whites (20 bottles):
French:
2 Macon blanc
