Where do you store your wine?

When I was a free-wheelin’ single gal, I had a wooden accordion-style wine rack that I kept on top of the refrigerator. In it, I stored a few bottles I’d received as gifts, saving them for the proverbial “special occasion.” I thought I’d found the perfect, out-of-the-way spot for my wine, but little did I know, the refrigerator motor was giving-off heat and vibrations which were slowly ruining my precious few bottles.  
It’s a common problem: Where to keep unopened bottles? The Executive Producer of “In Wine Country” Mary Orlin, used to keep her wine in the back of a closet in her home. Like many of us, Mary started collecting wine slowly with a special bottle or two, but the more she learned about wine, the more great bottles she amassed and the less room she had in her closet for wine or shoes.  
Space wasn’t Mary’s only problem. Indoor closets are typically too warm to store wine properly. In fact, Mary lost more than a couple bottles during summer heat waves. Those losses prompted Mary to invest in a wine refrigerator to house her wine, which means more room in the closet for Mary’s fabulous shoe collection!
Wine refrigerators, also called wine coolers or wine cellars, are a practical solution for most people. There are several different manufacturers and the styles are as varied as most wine collections. Vinotemp, a popular manufacturer, makes a 12-bottle cellar for $129, as well as a $13,000 model, which is one of their bigger, most elaborate wine cabinets. But chances are there’s something in between that fits your collection and your wallet. Ideally, you want to store your wine at a constant temperature of about 55 degrees Fahrenheit, and at a constant humidity, away from light.
Many people graduate from refrigerated units to bonafide wine cellars, actual refrigerated rooms dedicated to wine. On “In Wine Country” we have a feature called “Cellar Snoop” where we peek into the cellars of our viewers to see how and where they store their favorite bottles. We’ve seen wine cellars in all shapes and sizes, from an old root cellar turned into a wine cellar, to an ultra high tech cellar, complete with a computerized inventory system.
We interviewed Kathleen and Chuck Frasconi of San Jose for a “Cellar Snoop’ story. They turned their basement into a personal wine cellar for less than two thousand dollars. The Frasconis built the cellar themselves. In fact, Chuck spent four months laying the brick floor. Kathleen can tell you there are 2,000 bricks in the cellar because she helped carry them all downstairs. The Frasconis built a 300-square-foot cellar, which holds 250 bottles. More than half of the bottles in the cellar are from the Frasconis’ own winemaking efforts, which they call Palm Haven Cellars, after the San Jose neighborhood where they live.
There are no stairs leading down to David Niederauer’s wine cellar in Los Gatos.  He built his climate-controlled cellar right into his living room. In fact, only a wall of glass separates the cellar and the living room. Niederauer says it makes the cellar a focal point for everyone to enjoy. The cellar houses Niederauer’s collection of famous Sauternes wine from France’s Chateau D’Yquem. His collection dates back to the 1921 vintage. David and his wife, Tricia, say the cellar is a fun place to gather with friends. There’s an island in the middle of the room that is perfect for wine tasting. And though their collection is impressive, the Niederauer’s say they don’t wait for the perfect moment to open their favorite bottles. They say drinking the wine is it’s own special occasion.  
One of our most unusual cellar snooping trips was to the wine cellar at UC Davis.  The four- thousand-square-foot cellar holds nearly 200,000 bottles. Most of the wine in the cellar was made at UC Davis by professors and students as part of the school’s research and teaching programs. Davis students make about 1,500 cases of wine a year. The wine is used for research, really!  
Many bottles are part of wine aging experiments and have been in the cellar for decades. Built in 1939, the cellar contains everything from wine in jugs, to old Sherries dating back to 1800s. There are even private lockers for professors to house their own collections of up to eight to ten cases each.
Upstairs in a separate cellar, there are nearly 1,000 commercial bottles, many of them rarities like a 1962 Echezeaux from Burgundy. The collection, which is locked up tight, is worth upwards of $150,000. The wines give viticulture students the chance to taste aged wine. The cellar itself is one of the best-kept secrets in the UC system.
Another favorite cellar was the one we found at the historic Hearst Castle in San Simeon. The cellar, built to house the private collection of William Randolph Hearst, is accessible only by a secret passage in the castle. We were led down a curved staircase to the cellar, where massive iron doors protect the collection of seven thousand bottles. The collection is impressive, especially when you consider it was amassed during Prohibition.  
The best wines are kept behind a Plexiglas door, where the public is not allowed. Our cameras got an exclusive peek behind the glass where we saw several bottles of 1921 German Riesling. Dan Eller, a tour guide at Hearst Castle, told us 1921 was an excellent year for German Rieslings. We also saw a bottle of 1878 Hungarian Tokay wine. The guide said Hearst was fond of sweet wines, both white and red.
My husband found the foundation of an old house under our existing home and he turned that into a small wine cellar. Mother Nature keeps it cool for us. It’s not fancy, but that may be part of the charm because when we pull a bottle from the cellar it’s always good and dusty as if we’ve had it there for decades, ala William Randolph Hearst.
Whether you’ve got a mini-frig for your wine or a deluxe, climate-controlled cellar with a computerized inventory, storing wine properly means you’ll get to enjoy a lot longer. Remember those bottles on top of my refrigerator? They never made it to any occasion, special or otherwise, because the heat had ruined them. So, perhaps you should consider where you’re storing your wine.  If it’s competing for floor space with your shoes, or on display on the kitchen counter, or heaven forbid, on top of the frig, it may not be what you expect when you finally pop the cork. An investment in the proper wine storage will help keep your bottles drinkable now and several years down the road.