How to choose your wine cellar?

• How to choose your wine cellar?

Choosing between a wine cellar that lets you store 15 bottles in your living room, or one that can accommodate 300 bottles over winter in your garage, or a free-standing or built-in serving cellar in your kitchen - there's more to it than just a difference in size!

Each wine cellar has its own specific characteristics and performance, in response to a particular need and use. To help you find the perfect cellar for your needs, La Sommelière guides you step by step, asking the right questions.

• What are your needs?

The first question to ask is why do you want a wine cellar?

Do you need an ageing cellar, to see your bottles through to their peak, or a warming cellar, to bring your wines up to temperature for tasting? Or perhaps both?

A wine cellar is a long-term investment, so you need to think ahead to find the cellar that will accompany you for years to come. It's essential to choose a cellar that's adapted to your intended use. Often more attractive in terms of price than an ageing cellar, a service cellar will not be able to reproduce the conservation conditions of a natural cellar. Conversely, although "who can do more can do less", it would be a pity to spend a larger sum on an ageing cellar if you only wish to enjoy your wines at temperature, especially as the latter are more imposing and cannot necessarily be arranged as you wish.

The type of wine cellar you're looking for will depend on your intended use!

• How many bottles?

Once you've decided on the type of wine cellar, you need to be able to project how many bottles you'll be able to accommodate. Our advice: think ahead!

Whether you're looking for an ageing cellar or a warming cellar, it's important to visualize what you want to achieve in the long term, and not necessarily your current situation. If you're just starting out with your wine collection and have around twenty bottles, you're bound to be seduced by new wines, so the capacity of your cellar must be able to accommodate these future vintages!

You should also consider the type of wine you want to store, especially when it comes to temperature-controlled cellars. Double or even triple-zone models allow you to set several temperatures inside your cellar, so the capacity of these compartments must be adapted to the type of wine you want to store: red, white, rosé, champagne..

• Where do you want to place your cellar?

The location of your wine cellar depends on a number of essential criteria.

The first thing to think about is the type of installation: built-in or free-standing? Then come your space constraints, clearly defined on the built-in side, standard sizes: 30cm, 60cm, column-mounted, oven format or microwave oven, and kitchen-specific sizes, which you'll need to check more thoroughly before choosing your freestanding model. The dimensions of the cellar - width, depth and height - need to be studied in order to adapt to the space available. The reversibility of the door is an additional criterion that will enable your cellar to adapt to your constraints.

Please note that for free-standing wine cellars, a minimum space must be maintained between the cellar walls and surrounding walls or objects to ensure proper air circulation. Under no circumstances should a freestanding appliance be installed as a built-in unit.

Will your cellar be in your living space? Take a look at the noise level, so you can enjoy it with peace of mind. If you want to place it in your garage, or in a room with little or no heating, make sure you choose a model with an adapted winter function.

• What are your expectations?

A final, much broader question is: what are your expectations of this new wine cellar? From aesthetics to interior design, connectivity and power consumption, new criteria are appearing on the wine cellar market to offer cellars that are ever closer to your needs.