In search of the best cellar

Life Features: We're drinking four times more wine than in 1990, and we're getting fussier about what we drink. So it's high time wine cellars came out of the closet. Will Sullivan reports.

The more wine we drink, the more discerning we're becoming about what we drink - and how it's stored. Where once the kitchen cupboard would have sufficed for a bottle of supermarket wine bought the night before we served it up, now we're buying wine on holidays by the case-load - or car-load - and we don't want to find it spoiled by Christmas. Enter the wine cellar.

While most French houses will have a cellar in the same way they'd have a kitchen, a whole room dedicated to wine storage is very much the exception in Irish houses. So Irish people are improvising with anything from a purpose-built temperature controlled unit, to a room conversion.

As the Irish economy continues to grow, wine is a mainstay of contemporary social culture. Recent figures show Ireland is the fastest growing wine market in Europe after Russia, and consumption in the Republic has been booming for years.

Now, with the smoking ban and the ongoing campaign against drink driving, more people are drinking at home rather than in pubs. They are also buying more of their wine and spirits at off-licences and discount warehouses where bulk purchases are far less expensive. And the mini-cruises to Cherbourg in France offered by Irish Ferries for almost 30 years, are increasingly popular as more people travel specifically to fill the boot, or entire car, with wine.

"As soon as they get off the boat, they all make for the wine cellars," says a spokesman for Irish Ferries. The customs allowance for the importation of wine for personal use is 90 litres per person, or roughly 240 bottles for a couple arriving back from a shopping trip on the Continent.

According to Kieran Tobin, chairman of the Wine & Spirit Association of Ireland, nearly 90 million bottles of wine will have been consumed in the Republic by the end of this year, quadruple the amount in 1990, and the majority of these are drunk in the home.

Wine enthusiasts are investing more time and money into the proper ways to buy, drink and store bottles. Consumption is evolving into appreciation, and this growing awareness is driving a renaissance of sorts in the cellaring of wine.

Three of the largest companies that sell and install wine cellars and wine storage products in Ireland say sales have increased by 30 per cent in the last year, and although dedicated, custom-designed rooms are increasingly popular, the smaller, urban-friendly options are also helping to fuel the boom.

"It's not just the wealthy collectors driving the demand for cellars," says Colm Mooney of Dublin-based Custom Wine Cellars, "it's also the everyday consumer."

A wine cellar doesn't require extensive subterranean space. It can range from a small, refrigerator-like unit holding 50 bottles, to a custom-designed closet rack system, on up to climate-controlled rooms that store thousands of bottles.

John Taylor of Cellars & Accessories in Dublin says wine storage "can be as simple or as expensive as people want. Although temperature is widely considered the greatest determining factor affecting the flavour and aromas of wine, extremes in heat, light or humidity can all have adverse effects on the contents of a bottle. The delicate balance of these factors and not simply their elimination is of prime importance.

Avoiding storing bottles in any direct light, in a warm kitchen or even tight spaces along walls where radiators or other large appliances run, leaves few options for those who live in any city apartment or small urban home where space is at a premium.

John McCormack who faced the dilemma of tight space in his city apartment received a 50-bottle Vintec wine cellar as a gift. "For city living it's perfect," says McCormack. "It really does keep the wine well and it's far better than the racks in the corner of the room. If you don't have a lot of space for a dedicated cellar area, this is the next best thing."

Taylor says the best way to maintain wines is to store them at roughly 12 degrees Celsius, and 60 per cent humidity. Most wine cellar options today offer the ability to keep different levels of bottles at different temperatures and humidity levels and his most popular option is the smaller, 190-bottle EuroCave, which keeps wines at three temperatures inside the same unit.

"It helps people who don't have the space to easily solve how to keep their wine in good condition," Taylor says.

For those who have more space, there are larger storage options, from adapting rooms, to building dedicated cellar space. Walter Heseltine of Glenageary, Co Dublin, who describes himself as more of a wine enthusiast than zealous collector, says he merely wanted something to keep his wine well for drinking rather than committing to dedicated storage. With the help of the Kilkenny-based Wine Obsessed, Heseltine was able to get custom-designed racks in a utility room to create storage for roughly 400 bottles.

"The room doesn't get too hot or too cold and it's dark," Heseltine says. "Eventually, the hope is to build a dedicated room, but this works well for now."

Wine cellars range in price from €300 to several thousand euro for custom work, but the time may come when storage options for wine are a standard part of any home or apartment.Ken MacDonald of Hooke & MacDonald real estate says that although he has yet to see them as standard equipment in apartments, it's just around the corner. "It's definitely moving in that direction very quickly."

Mary Dowey's top tips

* Make sure your storage facilities are generous. You will want to buy wines by the case, allowing for plenty of variety in colour and style to suit different moods or occasions and stave off boredom. You will also need to keep topping up your collection, so that you always have a range of wines just ready for drinking.

Should you decide to buy en primeur - before the wine is bottled - you may well decide to spread your risk by purchasing a case or two from several properties.

All of this means you will need far more space than you imagined.

* Remember that wines are made for more immediate drinking these days than in the past - so don't make the mistake of stashing things away for years and years.

One advantage of buying by the case is that you can open a bottle every so often and see how the wine is developing, so that most of it can be enjoyed when at its best.

Absolutely nothing can be done to rescue a wine that is over the hill, whereas one that is uncorked while still a bit young can be softened up by decanting.

* Many wines nowadays are released for sale at far too tender an age - at the behest of winery accountants fretting about cash flow.

This means that even quite inexpensive young reds will benefit from a year or so in your cellar.

More serious whites (like premier cru or grand cru Chablis) should also improve if kept for a year or two.

* What to lay down? You'll probably think first of serious red wines - perhaps benchmark bottles from Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Rhone, Tuscany, Spain; or from top producers in Australia, California and South Africa.

Tannic reds live longest, the most prevalent being Cabernet Sauvignon.

* Less well known is the fact that some infinitely more affordable white wines can also have a long and exciting life.

Experiment with Riesling in all its forms (from Germany, Alsace or Australia), Australian Marsanne and Loire Chenin Blanc, especially from appellations such as Savennières and Vouvray.