Sunday, January 27 2008

Cellar Dweller

Behold, my mighty new cellar unit!

Some of my kind readers wrote to remind me that I promised another instalment in my series on cellaring. There is a reason why it's taken me three months to come back to the topic. I forgot. But on the bright side, I'm moving closer to that diagnosis of attention deficit dis . . . hey, you should see my new cellar!

It all started when I moved into my current domicile. A lovely location, but being beachfront it gives up in space what it gets in view. My wine rack had to go into an interior space that suffered from a warmer-than-acceptable temperature and some fluctuations between summer and winter. The last straw was when a bottle of Chateau d'Yquem I gave my wife for her birthday five years ago proved to be damaged when we opened it. Quelle dommage!

This year, for my birthday she surprised me with a brand new electronic wine storage unit. Dual climate controls, space for 180 bottles, glass door, compact footprint, and pretty sharp looking. I took delivery last week and we set it up over the weekend.

Here's the old rack. I had it for 20 years, and while it served well, the white pine is cracking and it's pretty stained from the Great Wine Disaster of '94. Out it had to come.

Out with the old . . .

(For those of you wondering how I manage on so few bottles of wine, we had depleted the rack in defense of the remaining bottles integrity. It was a sacrifice, but we managed to drink them down in the nick of time.)

After emptying, disassembly and removal, it was time to muscle in the new unit and fill it up. In the process we discovered some wines we had forgot were there!

Nestled all snug in their beds

The blur in the top left is my clumsy attempt to scrub out the logo. Why? Legal stuff.

Sparkling wine and whites in one zone, set at about 45°F (7°C) and the other set for reds at 58°F (15°C). I couldn't be happier, because now it's time to re-fill my cellar with yummy, yummy wine. I've felt a bit limited by not having a good storage zone at home (I have my work cellar, but not everything there is for my drinking pleasure--most is for long-term testing and experiments) but now I'm free to wine again.

And I still haven't really finished that bit on building a cellar. Stay tuned yet further, and I'm sure I'll get around to . . . hey, I want to go taste Reislings! Whee!

Posted by Tim AT 6:43AM

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