Starting Your Wine Cellar | Millon Wines

Tags: Wine Tasting & Etiquette

Who doesn’t love online shopping? The constant deals and discounts, I can definitely say I have done my fair share of online purchases during this lockdown. My favourite spends, of course, a nice bottle of wine. Whilst accumulating my hoard of bottles, I realised I needed a place to store all my favourite wines – and just using cardboard boxes was not cutting it anymore. So, to pass the time, I decided to curate my own at home wine cellar, to beautifully showcase my wine – or what is left.

I have created a 5-step guide to make your own personalised cellar, to bring your wine collection dreams to life.

Step One: Finding the perfect spot

The key to a good wine cellar is a consistent temperature and heat – so don’t put it in a sunny spot. Ideally, I would prefer a marbled lined, lavish wine fridge. But back to reality, those of us on a modest budget just need to find a dark spot. Under the stairs is perfect, or a location with temperatures consistent around 14-18 degrees.

It is important to use a dark, cool area, as high levels of sun exposure change the flavour of the wine or makes the wine go off. If storing wine with corks, the wrong temperature will dry out the cork, oxidising the wine. Your white wine will turn brown- a wine drinkers’ worst nightmare.

Step two: Materials

This is where you can really get creative. Consider using milk crates as shelves or spray painting the shelves with bright colours, to make your wine cellar unique. Adding stickers, glitter, or fairy lights to add extra flare and charm, to your cellar.

Fun tip: using display shelves with angles help keep the cork moist.

Step three: Wine Selection

Now the best bit, starting your wine collection. When selecting wines be brave, try new grape varieties. Choose wines from regions you love, transporting you to new locations, as the wine will take you places you can’t visit during lockdown.

I recommend selecting the Clare’s Secret 2019 Grenache, the Impressionist 2021 Pinot Grigio and the Artiste 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon, to experience the diverse and unique flavours from all our vineyard regions.

Keep in mind, whites and roses don’t necessarily benefit from age and should be consumed within 1-2 years. Reds age well, lasting over 3-10 years.

Step four: Organisation

There are multiple ways to organise your wine from type, label, region, oldest to newest. I recommend storing by region, to ensure you can find your wine quickly at the end of a hard workday. Or for us who love pink, how about a tonal range of pink rosé’s, light to dark.