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People who are passionate about wine usually start to collect it and as the wine collection grows you begin looking for a place to store your wine collection.

A cupboard or closet can easily be turned into a mini wine cellar to store your growing wine collection.

However, before you start building your mini wine closet consider the position of the closet in relation to the rest of the house.

Try not to convert a closet against an outside wall into your new wine cellar. From season to season the other walls of your home may be subject to wide temperature fluctuations. Ideally, choose an internal closet where your wine will be able to be stored at a more constant temperature.

The speed and degree of any temperature changes are critical in successfully storing and aging wine. A gradual change of a few degrees between summer and winter won’t matter. A similar change each day will harm your wines by ageing them too rapidly.

The number one rule when you are storing wine is to avoid large temperature fluctuations. You’ll notice damage of this type immediately from the stickiness that will often form around the capsule. Over time the continual expansion and contraction of the wine will damage the integrity of the cork. It’s just like having the cork pulled and replaced every day. When this happens, very small quantities of wine may be pushed out along the edge of the cork allowing air to seep back in. Once air has come in contact with the wine the irreversible process of oxidation starts and your wine will be ruined.

At 55ºF to 58ºF the wine will age slowly, enabling it to develop fully as intended by the winemaker. Higher temperatures age wine more rapidly and cooler temperatures slow the ageing process. The damage done to your wine will be irreversible if it is stored at temperatures over 82ºF even for a month.

Perhaps the most difficult part of building a mini wine cellar closet is finding other locations to store what is already in the closet!! Don’t hesitate … remove all the present contents (give away / auction / move them) and begin with an empty closet!

Purchase inexpensive wine racks from an online retailer, hardware store or storage shop and you’ll have a simple but effective mini wine cellar.

Wine rack designs vary greatly in bottle density; price variations have more to do with the aesthetic appeal of the racks than their efficiency.

Individual racking makes bottle selection easy. If you place racks against only one wall of the closet you should still have space available on the floor or shelves to store wines purchased by the case … these wines should remain strored in their cartons.