Choosing the Right Wine Racking System in Vancouver, Canada

Written by Holly Peters - Custom Wine Cellars Vancouver Comments Off on Choosing the Right Wine Racking System in Vancouver, Canada

Wine racks are the most ideal places to lay wines. Wine racking systems in Vancouver, Canada come in various styles, sizes and materials. How do you choose which wine racks are best for your wine collection? This article discusses tips on how to determine the right wine racking systems for you.

How to Choose the Right Wine Racks in Vancouver, Canada

Genuine wine lovers know the importance of proper wine storage. You can never truly enjoy wines if you do not know how and where to store them. The best place to keep them is in a residential custom wine cellar in Vancouver, Canada, with durable wine racks installed.

Effective Wine Racking Systems

Why are Wine Racks a Necessary Part of Wine Storage?

There are many reasons why wine racks are an ideal wine storage solution. One reason is that they are durable. Wine racks can be made from a variety of materials. Wooden wine racks and metal wine racks are among the most popular and most durable types. Another reason is that wine racks are aesthetically pleasing. You can flaunt your wine collection to your guests and friends. That’s why you need to have a beautifully designed wine racking system.

6 Things to Consider When Choosing a Wine Racking System

Wine racks in Vancouver, Canada come in various styles, sizes and materials. How do you know which ones are right for your wine collection? Here are 6 things to keep in mind:

Beautiful and Durable Wooden Wine Racks

1. Analyze Your Wine Storage Needs

There is no rule that states that you should only have a single wine rack, but before you purchase or have built a lot of wine racks, you should first analyze your wine storage needs. To be safe, it is wise to take into account the size of your wine collection. Not only should you note the amount of wine you consume in a week, but also the amount of wine count the amount of wine you consume in a week, but also the amount of wine you plan to store. Also, consider whether you want to have a fixed number of wine bottles or, if you intend to have a continuously growing wine collection. This will help you determine the size and type of wine racking system you need.

2. Consider Where You Install Your Wines

True wine lovers know that wines can never truly be enjoyed if they are not at their best, and wines cannot be kept in that state if they are not placed inside a wine cellar. Wine storage is undoubtedly an integral part of the wine drinking experience. Therefore, before you decide to purchase wine racks, you should already have a wine cellar to install them in.

Wine cellars are an ideal storage place for wines, because they can provide wines with the appropriate temperature and humidity for them to age properly. Wine cellars also protect wines from sunlight, which could otherwise damage them.

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Identifying Wines for Long Term and Short Term Wine Storage

Written by Holly Peters - Custom Wine Cellars Vancouver Comments Off on Identifying Wines for Long Term and Short Term Wine Storage

Wines generally taste better when allowed to age. But wines vary in the amount of time they need to be stored in a wine cellar in Vancouver, Canada. Learn the difference between short term and long term wine storage.

Short Term vs. Long Term Wine Storage in Vancouver, Canada

Wines are best kept safe when stored in a residential custom wine cellar built in Vancouver, Canada. But different wines have different storage requirements. There are types of wines that can and should be enjoyed after a few months, while others take many years to reach their best flavor.

It is important to learn the difference between short term and long term wine storage, because how long you store your wine will determine which method of wine storage you should use.

Which Wines are for Long Term Storage and Which are for Short Term?

What is Short Term Wine Storage?

Short term wine storage keeping wine in a wine storage solution for a maximum of 6 months before its consumption. But it is recommended by many wine experts that, even when you are not planning on long term aging for short term storage wines, the wines are still stored in conditions that resemble those necessary for long term storage, so that you can sure of the maintained/improved quality of your wines.

The Ideal Conditions for Short Term Wine Storage

Although you will not necessarily be aging short term storage wines, a stable temperature is still very important, to protect wines from spoiling. Ideally, the temperature in a wine cellar should be within 50 to 59 degrees Fahrenheit, with minimal to no fluctuations. Frequent fluctuations can cause premature aging. Moreover, make sure that the wine storage room is free from vibrations, and is odorless. It is also recommended to keep wines lying on their sides, to ensure that the cork is in constant contact with the wine.

Ideal Storage Solution for Short Term Storage Wines

A wine refrigerator is the most ideal wine storage solution for short term wine storage. Wine coolers are cost-efficient, and are offered in convenient sizes. Wine fridges protect wines from vibration, and also allow them to be kept on their sides, so that the corks are kept moist. Unlike a regular refrigerator, you can be sure that a wine refrigerator will keep your wines in an odor-free environment. Strong odors can negatively affect the flavor and aroma of your wines.

If you are not ready to buy a wine refrigerator yet, you can use a cool, dark place in your home as a temporary alternative. Find a place that is rarely used, like a closet, or a portion of your basement. Wines can be kept safe if kept in a box, or on wine racks lying on their side. However, before you serve your wines, make sure that cooled to their respective ideal serving temperatures.

Wines Stored in a Wine Cellar in Canada

What is Long Term Wine Storage?

Long term wine storage is for wines that need to be stored in a home custom wine cellar longer than 6 months before they can be best enjoyed. This also often refers to wine that needs to be aged longer than 6 months to develop their flavors properly. But there are times when wines end up in long term storage because of sheer quantity. For example, you purchased several cases from a winery you recently visited. While you are not necessarily aging the wines, there is a huge chance that they’ll be stored in your wine cellar longer than they should be, because you won’t be able to consume them all in 6 months!

Ideal Storage Solution for Short Term Storage Wines

The ideal conditions for proper long term wine storage include a dark location that is high in humidity and low in temperature. The temperature and humidity should be stable. Also, the location should be free from vibrations.

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Vancouver Custom Wine Cellar Renovation Project

Written by Holly Peters - Custom Wine Cellars Vancouver Comments Off on Vancouver Custom Wine Cellar Renovation Project

Custom Residential Wine Cellar Renovation in Vancouver (a Processed Video Transcription)

Vancouver Residential Renovation with Walnut Racking

Beach Avenue, Vancouver

Hi. I’m Adrienne from Blue Grouse Wine Cellars. I’d like to tell you about our wine cellar project that we completed recently in the Vancouver downtown area on Beach Avenue, and here’s the picture of the area.

You will see how beautiful it is down there. We’re working in a condominium building.

The Old Wine Storage Cabinet of the Client

The client that we worked with had their existing wine cellar or wine cabinet shown in this picture here. It was built with three separate temperature-controlled wine cabinet, one behind each this door.

We’re not really quite sure why it was designed that way, because wine cooling system could definitely handle the space. In any case, they had this for a number of years, about 20 years. And we’re running to update its look, and install properly working wine cooling equipment.

They also wanted to expand the size to accommodate their ever growing collection. So we started by doing designs for them.

We went through a few revisions, and eventually ended up here with this design. These were the drawings that we created so they could see in 3D exactly what they would be getting, and how it would fit the size.

You can see that there wasn’t a whole lot difference than what they started with, but the depth was greatly increased. There was some storage area behind this cellar that we stole space from that used to be a bathroom before their first home wine cellar. So they had easy water connection for the wine cooling system.

The 3D Drawings

Looking through the drawings here. This is the plan view, the top view, so you can see exactly all the measurements, and the various elevations, A, B, and C. Elevation A is the back wall. Behind this box of this cabinet is where the cooling unit is housed.

You can see in this further stripped down view what the cooling unit looks like. It kind of a large metal box with the wall ducting coming up the top and connect to the fitting up here where the cold air blows out into the cellar.

This grill here is where the warm air comes out to the unit. The return air is at the toe kick. It’s a pretty sophisticated design. They didn’t have to have grills. There’s a gap in the toekick at the bottom here where it opens so the air can feed back up to the cooling unit.

We got a shaker style door. They were looking for a pretty clean contemporary design, so you don’t see any fancy moldings or anything here.

The wine racking has some display shelves. These aren’t fold up because as you can see in this view, that the ducting is running up behind. So that hiding the ducting is what giving them some display space for the bottles that they wanted to stand up.

Custom Wine Cellar Features

Lighting

They got LED lighting incorporated at the top to shine down the display feature. They also have LED lighting over top of the display row for the individual bottle racking on either side of the cabinet.

Racking Components

Looking to the next elevations B and C, are mirrors of each other because these are the two sidewalls. They have some diamond bin storage here.

This is for the bulk wine, so when our client has wines that are all the same, all those bottles can fit into the bins here. It maximizes the storage capacity.

It wouldn’t be a good idea to include too many of these if you are somebody who buys 1 to 2 bottles at a time, because you wouldn’t want to mix the bottles in here because getting bottles at the bottom can be quite tricky.

This is the display row running horizontally through the middle. This carries through the perimeter of the room. It has LED lighting over top of the bottles to highlight them.

Elevation D is the front row of the cellar, which was full frameless glass. Now this isn’t the most efficient way to build a Vancouver residential wine cellar, but it can be done and we took careful attention to make sure that the doors had really good seals around them, so we don’t have air escaping or warm air coming into the wine cellar. It’s 12 mm clear tempered glass. They got some pull handles here on the front, and some top and bottom hinges.

Wine Refrigeration System

The cooling unit in here is a really powerful cooling unit. It can actually handle spaces up to 2,000 cubic feet, which is obviously a lot larger than this wine cellar was. But with this full frameless glass wall and no R-value in the front, we do have to compensate for that.

The Completed Home Wine Cellar

View Through Glass Doors into Custom Wine Cellar

Vancouver Wine Cellar Installation by Blue Grouse

So the finished project looks like this. Just as you saw on the drawings, everything matches. That was what the racking is. The installers followed the drawings assembling this wood wine racking and finishing the custom wine cellar.

All the racking was made from walnut wood, and really high quality walnut wood without any knots. And then it had an oil finish applied to it to darken the wood and give it a richer look and feel.

The shelves up here are glass shelves that were installed on brackets. This is where the liquor bottles were displayed by the client. And they’ve got some of their featured bottles highlighted in the display row here under the LED lighting.

I’ll just show you a few more pictures. This picture here shows you the full fronts glass wall. You can see they got some nice pull handles, pretty minimal in their appearance. Brushed nickel to match their brushed nickel catch hardware for the door hinges.

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How to Know that the Wines in Your Wine Cellar Have Gone Bad

Written by Holly Peters - Custom Wine Cellars Vancouver Comments Off on How to Know that the Wines in Your Wine Cellar Have Gone Bad

Wines need an effective wine storage space in order to be kept safe. Without an effective wine storage solution, wine will go bad, and must be thrown away. This cannot be allowed to happen; after all, wine does not come cheap. Here are some things check for to find out whether your wines have gone bad or not.

The Two Most Common Causes of Wine Going Bad in a Wine Cellar

There are many things that can cause your wines to become tainted or spoiled. The two most common are: cork taint and oxidation.

1. Cork Taint.

Cork tainting is the wine’s cork being contaminated prior to bottling. More specifically, the wine cork is contaminated by TCA, a type of bacteria that lives in cork. It is important to take note that this has nothing to do with the little bits of floating cork in wine. Rather, a wine cork with an excessive amount of TCA is what will contaminate and consequently spoil wine. The term “corked” refers to spoiled wine.

2. Oxidation.

Oxidation is a process that occurs when wine is overexposed to air. More specifically,wine compounds react to the oxygen in the air. The most common cause of oxidation in wine is improper wine storage. This is why it is very important to invest in a reliable residential custom wine cellar so that wines can properly be stored.

Cues that Indicate that the Wine in Your Wine Cellar is Spoiled

There are a few cues that you can look for to see if your wines have gone bad. To search for these cues, here are somethings that you can do:

1. Observe Its Appearance.

Simply check the appearance of your wine to gain an idea of whether it is still good, or if it is spoiled. Bad wine loses its brightness and takes on a brown hue. A bottle of red wine that has turned brown in color is either old or tainted. If a bottle of white wine has turned deep yellow in color, it has most likely oxidized.

Besides the color, observe also the wine cork. If the cork has slightly pushed out from the bottle, it maybe an indication that the wine has overheated and expanded within the bottle.

2. Smell the Wine.

This is one of the quickest ways to check for spoilage. If your wine smells moldy or musty, it has most likely been spoiled. If your wine smells like sherry and it isn’t sherry, it has probably gone bad. Other scents that can indicate spoilage are stewed fruit,and/or a heavy raisin smell. If you detect a strong vinegar or sulfur smell,similar to rotten eggs, this is a sure sign that the wine has gone bad.

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Understanding What Wine Cellar Cooling Units Are

Written by Holly Peters - Custom Wine Cellars Vancouver Comments Off on Understanding What Wine Cellar Cooling Units Are

A wine cellar refrigeration system is an integral part of a wine storage solution. It is responsible for providing the cool temperature and humidity to wines inside a wine storage room,so that they can age and develop properly. Without a good cooling system installed, a wine cellar will be rendered useless.

What is a Wine Cellar Cooling Unit?

A wine cellar cooling unit is similar to a regular air conditioning unit, but not quite the same. A wine cellar cooling system is specifically built to cater to the wine storage needs of wine cellars. Only a wine cellar cooling unit can provide the specific temperature and humidity levels that wines need to develop their aromas and flavors. At its core, a wine cellar refrigeration system is an air exchanger. It basically provides cool air to a wine cellar, while removing the warm air that rises to the top and sending it into an exhaust room.

Basic Elements of a Good Wine Cellar Refrigeration System

Wine cellar refrigeration systems in Vancouver, Canada come in various shapes, sizes and configurations. It can be really difficult to determine which brand is best fit for your wine storage room.To make it easier to choose the right wine cellar cooling system, here are the standard requirements of a quality wine cellar cooling unit:

1. A Good Wine Cellar Cooling Unit is Durable.

It is imperative that your wine cellar cooling unit in Vancouver, Canada, has a long lifespan. Generally, the longer the lifespan of a refrigeration system, the more expensive it is. Wine cellar cooling systems that are on the lower end of the market usually last around 1 to 4 years, but there are a few that are known to last longer when used under the ideal conditions. High quality wine cellar refrigeration units can last from 5 to 7 years, with some brands lasting even longer.

2. Choose Wine Cellar Cooling Units That Produce Minimal Noise

A wine cellar cooling unit is the most common source of noise in a wine storage room. The problem with noise is that, if it is excessive, it can cause vibrations in the wine racks and there by disturb the aging and development process of the wines. The amount of noise that a wine cellar cooling unit produces depends on its quality and on how it is configured. Some types of cooling units produce minimal noise, while others are very noisy.

3. Your Cellar Refrigeration Unit Should Be Efficient

The efficiency of a wine cellar refrigeration system is essential. How does the cooling unit perform the task at hand? There are cooling units that can cool a room to the ideal temperature, but cannot maintain it for very long. Some cooling units have trouble functioning should the outside temperature become too warm or too cold. There are also some refrigeration units that have a problem with temperature uniformity, producing cooler and warmer spots through the custom wine cellar.

Many times, the design and construction of the wine cellar play a large role in how well the wine cellar refrigeration system functions. If a wine cellar is not properly insulated, and if it isn’t completely air tight, a wine cellar cooling unit will fail to function effectively. Also, if you install a cooling unit that is too small for a large wine storage room, the unit will fail to do its job properly, and can even be damaged.

Types of Wine Cellar Cooling Systems in Vancouver, Canada

There are various types of wine cellar cooling units in Vancouver, Canada, but they can be categorized into two basic kinds.

1. Self-Contained Wine Cellar Cooling Systems

A self-contained wine cellar cooling unit has both the evaporator and condenser contained in one single housing. There are two subtypes of self-contained wine cellar cooling units and they are:

a. Ductless Self-Contained Wine Cellar Cooling Units

This is the easiest to install, because you simply mount the cooling unit through the wall of the home wine cellar. An HVAC professional is not needed for the installation of this unit. The major advantage of ductless self-contained wine cellar cooling systems is that they are very cost-effective. The common complaint for this kind of cooling system is that it produces a lot of noise in the wine storage room.

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