A Nice, Big Cave of Wine

[pergamum]

Hey foodie and hot wine, you both sound like well traveled sommeliers. I am curious, do either one of you use a wine cave, and do you know who might sell me one at a extremely discounted rate? I wouldn't store more than eight bottles at a time.

[hotwine]

Thanks for the compliment.
Assume you mean a Eurocave or other brand of in-home appliance-style storage unit? No, I use an old concrete storm cellar, now equipped with an interior door, homemade racks and lots of insulation. The missus and I have admired those appliances, and discussed buying a small one for use under a kitchen counter; but we go on using our daughter's little refrigerator from her college days, that we have set up in our utility room to handle "on-call" white wines, beer and soft drinks. For red wines, I trot off down the path of 35 yards or so to the cellar, heft the steel door and step down into the gloom.
I don't know how those little refrigerators would work for more long-term wine storage, but you can't beat the price at less than $100 in an appliance store. Maybe someone else has experience with using one in that role.

[Thomas]

I have a fine cellar under my house, stone foundation, nicely insulated, and that is where the wine rests.

I must tell you, though, I am less a wine collector than a wine consumer, so most of my cellar rotates rather frequently. Only the rare few bottles that need long aging, or that have sentimental value, get to read the stone patterns on the ceiling for a long time in my cellar.

A refrigerator is fine for the short run. It is normally dry inside a frig, and that is not good for cork. Of course, laying the wine down helps, but there is something about dry air that manages to seep into even a wet cork--go figure.