Taking Care of Your Wines and Your Cellar

In collecting wine, no matter what your motive is, either for pleasure or profit, the crucial aspect to consider is the storage of your wine anthology.

Whether your collection includes the world's most expensive wine for 2012, Penfolds’ 2004 Block 42 housed in 750-ml glass ampoules and priced at $168,000, or just wines from your favorite wine club, your wine collection needs to be protected not only to preserve your investment, no matter what the value, but also to ensure quality.

In wine collecting, you should strive to maintain a balance between building or having the most ideal wine storage such as wine fridge and maintaining not only your collection but also your wine cellar at best condition by taking care of them both every so often.

Not only will the wine diminish in quality or will not last at all, if not cared for, but so will your wine cooler or cellar. Even the most stately and durable wine cellars cannot ward off the termites, scorpions, ants, and other pests that tend to infest cellars if conditions that allow them to thrive exist.

So here are some pointers or good ways on how you can take good care of your wines and wine cellar. 

• Maintain proper cellar lighting. Your collection's exposure to light should be limited. It is best to store wine in a dark room. Do not use fluorescent light as this can be harmful. You can use incandescent bulbs which may be a bit safer than fluorescent bulbs, as they only emit very small amounts of ultraviolet light.

• Keep a stable environment for your wines. Vibration is harmful to wine, as it could possibly disturb the sediment in older wines and keep them from settling, potentially making them unpleasantly gritty. Also, keep the bottles in a horizontal position.

• Have a backup power supply. A sustained power outage could put your wine collection at risk. To protect your investment, try to have a permanent back-up generator.

• Don't let moisture in your cellar. This holds true especially for a wine cellar that is constructed mostly out of wood materials. This is because the cellulose content in the wood in your wine cellar is the food of termites and other pests. And combined with moisture, this will now create the perfect environment for these termites and other similar pests to thrive.

• Clean the wine cooling unit as well as the humidifier often. Check and clean your wine cooling units from time to time to ensure that they are in proper working condition. Also make sure that the unit is free from moisture as moisture can lead to the eventual rusting of your unit as well as be another major source of a termite attack. Also, ensure that your humidifiers should be cleaned out thoroughly and remove the dirt and other foreign elements before replacing them with clean water every day or every other day.

• Insure wine collection if available. Make sure to consider insuring your collection separately as wine collections increase in value. 

Relax at Home, an online shopping site of wine storage products is your great find if you are looking for wine fridges or coolers for your cellar. Join us on our Official Facebook Page or Follow Us On Twitter for more updates regarding wine storage.