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Label of Elegance
Tracy McGillivary, at home in Bethesda, holds a bottle of Silver Oak cabernet sauvignon, an earlier vintage of which she and her husband were drinking when they got engaged.
(By Mary Lou Foy For The Washington Post)
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An average cellar holds about 1,000 bottles, but some can hold thousands more. Prices, too, vary wildly, from the $10,000s to $100,000 and higher, according to several cellar designers.
One reason that wine cellars have become so prevalent is that as more people drink fine wines, they are learning the value of letting some of them, particularly tannic reds, improve with age.
"A lot of times when wine is released, you don't want to drink it right away," said Tracy McGillivary, a retired lawyer in Bethesda. "You need to wait a few years."
There are sentimental reasons for saving wine as well. McGillivary bought her twin son and daughter each a case of Opus 1 cabernet sauvignon the year they were born, 1994. Her uncle did the same thing for his children. "I thought, if I ever have the space, that would be a great thing to do," she said. "Now I have the space."
For many people, a home wine cellar is also about building and protecting a valuable investment.
If you want your wine to last a long time, here's what the experts recommend: good ventilation and a stable temperature, about 55 degrees; humidity of 50 to 60 percent, though other wine-cellar experts say 75 percent works; a vapor barrier; and proper insulation. For your shelves and racks, you probably want redwood or pine, though mahogany is also aesthetically pleasing. The goal is to avoid rotting, mold and the drying out of the cork.
"Over the last couple of years, the technology for the wine cellars has really been improved," said Steve Goldstein, founder and a co-owner of Classic Cellar Design. "People feel more comfortable" building them, he said.
But they had to learn the hard way. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, many home wine cellars were built improperly, Goldstein said. Ceilings caved in. Vapor barriers accumulated condensation.
"Done properly, wine cellars can be an enjoyable part of the house," he said. "Done improperly, they can really be the Achilles' tendon of the house."
Once they figured out how to install wine cellars, builders of upscale homes started making them bigger and more ornate. Several designers said they can include tasting rooms, cigar-smoking areas, bookshelves, fur rooms, commissioned art and more.
"They're becoming more elaborate, more glamour and glitz," said Tom Smithson, president and owner of Baltic Leisure in Pennsylvania, which has clients in the D.C. area.
But you don't have to own a million-dollar home or take frequent trips to Napa Valley to afford your own wine storage, cellar designers and builders say. After all, wine is a beverage enjoyed by people of all incomes. "It's really for anyone now," said Ben Crawford, a principal of Vintage Wine Rooms in Great Falls.
