Google loves giving the world order with rankings, hierarchies, and lists. Searches for any top 5, including the top 5 benefits of having a wine cellar, produce a flood of targeted results—more than 19 million delivered in roughly a minute to be precise.
We don’t have a problem with anyone else’s top 5 benefits of having a wine cellar list, and since you’re reading this post on a website devoted to cutting-edge wine cellar climate control systems, it’s obvious that protecting and preserving a wine collection is a top priority. It all begins with the right wine cooling system.
What we don’t always see emphasized in other content on this topic is the satisfying and complex nuances of the pleasure paradigm. So, while acknowledging that safeguarding your wine collection and ensuring the optimal conditions for aging fine wines are the primary concerns, we’re inspired by the pleasure of enjoying noble wines to mix things up a little bit.
The coolcellars.com list of the top 5 benefits of having a wine cellar goes like this:
#1 Having a Wine Cellar Enhances Your Lifestyle
Let us count the ways having a wine cellar—meaning a wine cellar design created and brought to life by an highly experienced expert like Fred Tregaskis of Summit Wine Cellars—improves your lifestyle, and life.
- Drinking wine makes you happy, which The Wine Spectator explains.
- Regular wine consumption has health benefits.
- Collecting fine wines means you always have the perfect bottle to make any meal memorable, elevating your enjoyment of food and inspiring you to entertain—with the fringe benefit of social interaction.
- Fine wine collections even give you a greater appreciation, or tolerance for, all seasons. You’ll find yourself structuring summertime meals and experiences around crisp white wines and light reds; nothing beats enjoying a robust red wine with dinner after an autumn walk to admire the fall foliage; uncorking hearty wines anchors the appeal of winter hibernation, and spring’s exuberance is a license to drink whatever you like and make new discoveries.
- Special bottles from the wine collection make every holiday truly special.
- You always have a perfect gift at hand.
#2 A Wine Cellar Expands Your Horizons
Most other hierarchies list organizing your wine collection as a Top 5 benefit of having a wine cellar that’s outfitted with the right wine cooling system. Organization and a system to log and track your wines are valuable, to be sure, but we find the ripple effects of organization more exciting.
Having a wine cellar naturally increases your knowledge of the world’s wines on an ongoing basis as the collection grows and deepens.
A wine cellar that imposes order on global wine geographies—like Tuscany Burgundy, and Rioja—is like a living travelogue that inspires and enriches a sensory-pleasing version of armchair travel.
Collecting and enjoying wines from the cellar expands your horizons, providing education and enlightenment about global geography, climate, and geopolitics, as well as inspiring actual soul-satisfying travel.
#3 A Wine Cellar Adds Value to Your Home
Fine homes that appeal to discerning buyers are essentially expected to have a wine cellar with a high-tech wine cooling system, according to the authoritative source realtor.com.
Part of what contributes to that added value is the “curb appeal” of the wine cellar design beauty.
Viewed through the lifestyle lens, the value shifts to the dividends homeowners collect from showing distinguished guests the wine cellar—and then treating them to some of the fine wines stored and aged in impeccable surroundings.
#4 A Wine Collection Provides an Investment With Delicious Dividends
Just as the world’s best wines improve with age, they also grow in value, often exponentially. Every wine collection represents a living investment, even for collectors who only intend to drink what they’ve acquired rather than eventually sell or auction prized bottles.
As a strict investment, wine is a great choice, assuming smart investment strategies. A dense and fascinating University of Cambridge study shows that only equities appreciated faster and better than wine from 1900 to 2012 among the collectibles studied (also including art, stamps and bonds.)
As noted above, there’s indirect value even if you plan to drink everything you buy. Imagine having an important business connection over for dinner and uncorking a red Burgundy or Barolo from 1990 you purchased relatively inexpensively upon release. “What’s this worth?” your guests asks while praising a Joseph Drouhin Volnay. “I picked it up for $35,” you say, pausing. “If you could find it now it would cost somewhere north of $200.”
The issue of value is where we transition into the importance of the right wine cellar cooling unit as part of the larger climate control system. The value of a wine collection hinges on the conditions of wines, as is true of antiques, artwork, and coins. While condition for those other collectibles is often obvious and can be determined without implication the integrity of the item, the same isn’t true for fine wines. It takes popping the cork to know for sure how well the wine has been persevered.
A reputation and trust factor enters the equation when collectors are buying and selling fine wines, and the best way to establish trust is to turn to an expert for wine cellar design and construction, and to purchase and carefully maintain a top wine cooling system—information that can be reported whenever prized bottles are the subject of a transaction.
#5 A Wine Cellar with a Cooling System Protects Your Wines
There’s no point in having a wine cellar, or less formal wine storage space, if the wines you’re purchasing lay down for a bit of aging are exposed to conditions that threaten their condition and value—like too much heat, excessive light, and a lack of humidity.
The wine cellar cooling unit you choose as part of a climate control system that also ensures proper humidity levels of 55 to 60 percent is the foundational element of any wine cellar.
Wines stored and aged in correct conditions have integrity, increase in value, improve over time, and see their quality not only preserved but enhanced. When the time comes for wine cellar design, work with your professional to ensure that the right wine cooling system is a top priority.
About Summit Cool Cellars
Summit Cool Cellars is a division of Summit Wine Cellars, LLC, (https://summit-cellars.com). Summit owner/designer Fred Tregaskis creates dramatic custom wine cellars for clients throughout the world. Summit has a dedicated manufacturing facility in Connecticut, where expert craftsmen fabricate all the components—in wood, metal, glass and other materials. Those bespoke components of each unique cellar are shipped to each location and assembled there by Summit Wine Cellars, before the final flourishes and finishing touches are added.
To learn more about Summit Wine Cellars, LLC and the wine cellar design process, contact Summit Wine Cellars by email at info@summit-cellars.com, or by phone at 203-916-1664. Make sure to see the Portfolio page for examples of Summit’s traditional and modern wine cellar design.
