Wine Cellar FAQ

Storage conditions

What temperature should a wine cellar be kept at?

Around 55°F (13°C) for long-term storage. The exact number matters less than holding it steady — a cellar that swings between 50°F and 62°F ages wine worse than one that sits a couple of degrees off but never moves. We build the envelope that makes a stable temperature achievable; the refrigeration specialist sizes the equipment to hold it.

What humidity does wine need?

Roughly 70% relative humidity. Too dry and corks shrink, which lets air in; too wet and labels and cases suffer. In South Florida the risk runs in both directions — ambient humidity is high, but an aggressive cooling unit in a badly sealed room dries it out. That is a vapour barrier problem before it is an equipment problem.

Is a wine cellar the same as a wine fridge?

No, and the distinction is worth being clear about. A wine fridge is an appliance for serving temperature and short-term holding. A cellar is a built, sealed, conditioned room that holds long-term ageing conditions and is part of the house. Below about 200 bottles, a good cabinet or fridge is genuinely the better answer, which is why we do not build below that.

Does a wine cellar need to be underground?

No — and in South Florida it almost never is. Very little of our work is below grade. What a cellar needs is an insulated, sealed envelope and a cooling system sized to the real thermal load, and that can be built on any floor of any building. Most of our cellars are on the ground floor or in towers.

Can a wine cellar have a glass wall?

Yes, and a large share of what we build does. Glass is a thermal load rather than an obstacle: the glazing specification, the seal and the cooling capacity are designed together. What does not work is adding glass to a room that was conditioned as though it were solid.

Can you build a wine cellar in a garage?

Sometimes, but it is the hardest common case. An uninsulated South Florida garage can run well over 100°F, which means both a much heavier envelope and a cooling system working against a far larger differential. It can be done well; it costs more than the same room inside the conditioned envelope of the house, and we will say so before you commit.

Building one

How much space does a wine cellar need?

Less than most people expect. A wall roughly 8 feet wide will hold several hundred bottles in display racking, and under-stair voids that the house was not using are among our most common projects. What matters more than floor area is depth, access and whether the surrounding construction can be sealed.

Can you build in an apartment or condominium?

Regularly — a large part of our work is in high-rise buildings between Miami and Jupiter. Towers bring their own constraints: association approvals, service elevator access, delivery windows and an envelope that has no outside air. Those are scheduling and detailing problems, and we plan for them rather than discover them.

Do you build commercial cellars for restaurants and hotels?

Yes. Restaurant and hospitality cellars have to survive service and still read well from the dining floor, which changes the racking, the materials and the access. Our commercial work includes projects in Madrid and across South Florida.

Can I add to the cellar later?

That depends on how it was drawn, which is why it is worth raising at the design stage rather than afterwards. Because everything is fabricated to our own drawings rather than bought as a system, we can make matching components later — but planning the expansion in from the start is always cheaper than retrofitting it.

Do you ship outside Florida?

Yes. Most of our work sits between Miami and Jupiter, but we have delivered cellars in Madrid, Caracas, Punta Cana and Santo Domingo, and we ship internationally. Shipping and installation outside South Florida are quoted per project.

Refrigeration

Do you install the cooling system?

We build everything the cooling system depends on — insulation, vapour barrier, the sealed door or glass wall, and the housing the equipment sits in — and a refrigeration specialist supplies, installs and commissions the unit itself. We coordinate them into the build, so you deal with one company even though two trades are involved.

Why is the refrigeration quoted separately?

Because it is not our equipment and we will not mark up a specialist's work as though it were. Quoting it separately means you can see what the room costs and what the equipment costs, and you are not paying us a margin on a compressor.

What happens if the cooling unit fails?

A properly built cellar buys you time: a sealed, insulated room holds condition for far longer than an unsealed one, which is the practical argument for spending on the envelope. The specialist who commissioned the unit services it. If the room itself is the problem, that is ours.

Does every wine cellar need refrigeration?

No. A wine wall in a conditioned living room, holding bottles for weeks rather than decades, may not need its own cooling at all. If you are storing for the long term in Florida, it does. We would rather establish which one you are building before quoting an envelope you do not need.

Working with us

What is the smallest project you take?

200 bottles. It is not an arbitrary line: below it, the design and fabrication overhead of a bespoke system stops being worth what you get, and an off-the-shelf cabinet is honestly the better purchase. We would rather turn the enquiry away than sell you the wrong thing.

Can you work with my architect, designer or contractor?

Most of our projects arrive that way. We work from their drawings, return a design proposal for approval, issue the structural and services requirements early, and coordinate on site. There is a page for the trade side of this.

Do you service cellars you did not build?

We look at them. Racking repairs, re-lighting and reconfiguration are often possible; envelope problems in a room somebody else sealed are a case-by-case question. Send photographs and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth doing.

Where are the cellars made?

In the United States. The company was founded in Spain in 2007 and worked across Spain for years before moving to South Florida, but the workshop that fabricates your racking is here.

Questions answered elsewhere

• What a custom wine cellar costsThree bands by capacity, what moves the number, and what a quote excludes.
• Working with architects and interior designersDeliverables, drawing formats, scope boundaries and how a trade project runs.
• The six stages of a projectFrom first consultation to handover, and what happens at each one.
• Wine Cellar DesignEvery cellar starts as a drawing.
• Wine Cellar Refrigeration & CoolingRefrigeration is where most wine cellars fail, and in Florida it fails faster.
• Custom Wine Racks & Racking SystemsRacking is the structure and the aesthetic at once.
• Wine Cellar InstallationInstallation is where a design either holds up or unravels.
• Wine Cellar ContractorsMost wine cellars involve a designer, a cabinet maker, a refrigeration contractor and a general contractor, and the gaps between them are where projects go wrong.