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wineschool-blog · 3 years ago

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Cellaring Wine

https://j.mp/3BskLvo Let’s start with a basic idea: what is a wine cellar? It’s a room designed to store wine over a very long period of time. That’s all the room does. You shove a bottle into the room, and ten years later, you have a reasonable chance the wine will still be good. It isn’t a place to entertain friends or even taste wine. It’s a one-function room. If you want a room to celebrate your love of wine, you need a wine-themed playground for adults. That’s really cool, but it’s not a cellar. The room has to control four variables that can affect the longevity of a bottle of wine: temperaturevibrationlighthumidity The first three are forms of energy that can negatively impact your wine storage. The final variable affects the wine’s cork and label. A well-built cellar will address all four issues. Table of contentsCeller EssentialsHumidityVibrationLightDo You Really Need a Wine Cellar?Wine Cellar in a ClosetWine Cellar IdeasWine Cellar on the CheapWine Cellar DIYWine Cellar DesignPlansDoors Cooling UnitsThe Classic Wine Cooling UnitMy Recommended Wine Cooling UnitMake it EfficientThe Cheap Way to Keep Your Wine CoolWine Cellar RacksStorvinoWine Cellar FloorsWine Cellar Walls and Vapor BarriersThe Wine School’s Cellars Through The Ages Celler Essentials Temperature is the most critical aspect of wine storage. It is also the easiest to accomplish. For long-term storage, temperatures need to be kept between 54 and 59 degrees Fahrenheit, with no more than a 2 percent variation in a 24 hour period. If you plan on storing wine for no more than three years, then a temperature below 75 degrees is fine. Humidity Humidity is harder to regulate, as it varies both regionally and seasonally. The ideal humidity level is 70%, but a range of 50-75% is fine. Under 50% and corks start to dry out within four years, and over 75% and mold become a major issue on wine labels. Vibration An oftentimes ignored problem that can really harm wine over time. A vibration is a form of energy that easily passes through wine. It can come from a heavily trafficked hallway or even trucks passing on a nearby road. The vibration needs to be canceled out. Light Sunlight and much artificial light throw off two things that can destroy wine: heat and ultraviolet radiation. Lighting sources have to be designed in a way that minimizes impact. LED lights are the only way to go. I recommend using motion-activated lights. Do You Really Need a Wine Cellar? If you aren’t planning to lay down the wine for a long time, don’t worry about building a wine cellar. As long as you aren’t abusing your wine, your wine will keep for a few years without being cellared. You don’t even have to store your wine on its side: the cork won’t start drying out for a few years, anyways. Wine Cellar in a Closet If you want to keep wine for a few years, empty a closet and store your cases of wine there. It’s not sexy, but it’s cheap and does the trick. Your main goal is to keep your wines from getting too hot. The magic number for short-term wine storage is 75 degrees. Over that temperature, you’ll see faster degradation of the wine. A wine that would last ten years won’t last one. Over 80 degrees and the wine will need to be consumed within the week. Over 90 degrees, and you might as well start googling for a good sangria recipe. Pretty Isn’t The Best Way to Store Wine Wine Cellar Ideas Building a wine cellar doesn’t have to be expensive. The original Wine School cellar was in the basement of my apartment building. We didn’t keep wines around longer than a few months, so being stored at 70 degrees didn’t matter. After all, that’s pretty much the temperature it’s stored in at a wine shop. When the school moved to Fairmount Avenue, we needed a larger cellar. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much money, so I built the cellar material liberated from a nearby construction site. It was the craziest looking wine cellar in history, but it did the job. By the time we moved to Rittenhouse, I had developed a 4000 bottle storage facility that didn’t break the bank. Since then, I’ve built three more wine cellars and consulted on dozens more. Wine Cellar on the Cheap The first rule of cheap wine storage is to stop googling pictures of wine cellars. It will just make you upset, so stop! You won’t be ordering custom hardwood wine racks. Mongolian monks won’t carve your cellar door from a millennia-old Cyprus tree. Nope. Home Depot and Amazon Prime are your new best friends. Your new cellar will not earn a spot in Architectural Digest (although one of my student’s wine cellars did end up being featured in the Wine Spectator). Nope. Your room is going to resemble a janitorial closet at the local high school. And that’s a very, very good thing. Wine Cellar DIY Building a new room is often the best option, although retrofitting an existing room is possible. The most cost-effective way of building a wine cellar is doing it yourself. If you can hang drywall, you can build a wine storage room. If not, you’ll have to hire a contractor. The trick is not to tell them that it’s going to be a wine cellar. If you do, the price will go up. Not because it takes specialized skills, but because they’ll assume you are filthy rich. Hire the contractor for the hard stuff, and finish off the easy stuff –like painting — yourself. The best time to bring in a contractor is when you need other work done to get the best price. They will give you a much better price if there are several jobs to do. If you are re-doing your kitchen, they may even throw in the weird little room you want to be built in the basement for free. Beautiful Isn’t Always Better. Wine Cellar Design How big a cellar do you need? You can hold 1,200 bottles in a 5ft (W) X 10ft (L) x 7 ft (H) wine cellar, which is about 350 cubic square feet of interior. Of course, the smaller the footprint, the more efficient the cellar will be! Plans Smaller is always better. You want a cellar with minimal open space: floor-to-ceiling wine storage and a narrow walkway. Designing wine storage is all about the cubic feet of space you’ll have to keep cool. Space is surprisingly difficult to regulate. An empty cellar –even a perfectly built one– will jump up 3 degrees in temperature as soon as someone walks in and will continue to rise. If a quarter of the space in the cellar is full of wine, the increase is negligible –about .05 degrees in five minutes. Fluid is a great insulator, so it’s important to keep the cellar filled. When you start planning your cellar, have a reasonable idea of how many bottles you will want to store. Build your cellar plan around that number. Doors The place to start designing a wine cellar is with the door. Unfortunately, it’s the weakest link in the cellar. Most people install a fancy wood or glass door. They look amazing, but they are terrible ideas for a functional wine cellar. You need two things in a wine cellar door: insulation and security. That is why I use prehung steel doors for my wine cellars. These are the type of doors a contractor would use when installing a front door on a house. You can pick one up for a few hundred dollars at your local Home Depot. Cooling Units This is the tough part. Cooling units are expensive, and they will be the one thing that will fail. The Classic Wine Cooling Unit The very best way is to vent cold air into the wine cellar via ductwork. Unfortunately, systems like this are expensive. Most sommeliers claim the gold standard system is the WhisperKOOL Extreme 5000tiR. However, with installation, this can cost upwards of $7K. My Recommended Wine Cooling Unit My preferred unit is the CellarPro 4200VSi with a VC Duct Kit upgrade. I install the entire unit inside the wine cellar, hanging from the ceiling, with ductwork through the wall in two places. The first pulls filtered air from just outside the wine cellar. I run the other ductwork as far away as possible –another room or even outside– to exhaust the hot air. This system costs about $4k installed and is far superior to the WhisperKool. Make it Efficient Always buy a unit larger than you need by at least 20% no matter what you do. This will increase efficiency, lowering the long-term costs of storing wine. The Cheap Way to Keep Your Wine Cool If you want to go the cheap route, you can use a through-the-wall air conditioner. You’ll need a powerful model (over 15,000 BTU) with a remote thermostat. I built it for a friend; I used the Frigidaire FRA156MT1, which cost around $600. Install the AC unit at 4 feet above the floor and vented into a room that is at least 3X the size of the wine cellar. Here’s how to make sure it will keep your cellar at 55 degrees: place the remote outside the wine cellar. Since the remote will always show a higher temperature, the AC will continue to cycle. There is always a chance of losing humidity. Because of that, it’s important to install a humidity sensor, or at least leave a bucket of water in the cellar. Wine Cellar Racks This is where my no-nonsense approach to wine cellars really changes how you design a wine cellar. I do not use traditional wine racks. The ones you buy on Amazon or at Ikea will most likely be made of pine, which will start to rot in the humid environment of the wine cellar. These are the type of wine racks to avoid. Wood wine racks must be built out of mahogany or redwood, and that is an expensive proposition. Over time, they will start to rot. However, that may take over a decade. Storvino My preferred storage is using storvino, which is an extensible system of plastic extruded wine racks. They are efficient, easy to assemble, and easy to reconfigure. I think of them as LEGOS for winos. They are also great to transport wine with: when you attend a wine class, you should notice the black boxes we carry wine in: those are storvino racks. For a 1,200 bottle cellar, you can expect to spend about $4K for your storvino shelving if you purchase them online. That is a lot of cash, but let’s put that into perspective: retail redwood shelving will cost about the same. However, to be as efficient space-wise as storvino, you would have to purchase custom-sized shelving, which will cost upwards of $5K for a 1200 bottle shelving. Bottom line: If you want an extensible wine cellar that puts function over beauty, then Storvino is a great option. Wine Cellar Floors The cellar floor should accomplish three things: insulate, retain humidity and protect falling bottles. No matter what the surface of the cellar is, it should be coated with a non-porous sealer. When designing a wine cellar in a basement, I use three coats of epoxy sealer over the cement floor. Use the kind designed for garage floors: it will last a lifetime. I then lay down rubber mats, the kind used in restaurant kitchens. Let’s be honest: you are as much of a clumsy drunk as I am. You are going to drop a few bottles. Wine Cellar Walls and Vapor Barriers The walls are built like any other interior partition. Built with 2X4 lumber and are faced with 1/2″ gypsum board on each side. These are 4 1/2 inch deep walls. You have to make a few adjustments. Insulation is essential. R-15 fiberglass insulation is best, as it will also absorb most vibration. Before you hang the interior gypsum board, line the lumber with 6 mils plastic sheeting. This is your vapor barrier, which is critical to the success of a wine cellar. It retains the humidity in the cellar, prevents the insulation from rotting, and helps keep the wine cellar pressurized. Along with the walls, it’s a good idea also to do the same for the ceiling. Another smart upgrade is to use a green board in the interior. It’s designed for wet spaces. I also use a vapor barrier primer in the interior; Benjamin Moore has a perfect latex-based one. The Wine School’s Cellars Through The Ages The Italian section of the Wine School Cellar in 2021 Our current wine cellar is a series of narrow pathways with floor-to-ceiling wine. Motions sensors turn on LED lights as you move through the facility. Its industrial look wasn’t intentional; it’s the byproduct of being a highly efficient wine storage space. Our Upgraded Wine Cellar, circa 2007. .wp-duotone-filter-61255e0599622 img { filter: url( #wp-duotone-filter-61255e0599622 ); } Our second wine cellar was a traditional affair. We ordered our wine racks through a specialty wine company. I loved the design: the narrow spacing of the racks was very efficient and easily organized. However, the wood racks posed a problem. After eight years, the racks started to show cracks near the joints. The BEAST: Our very first wine cellar, circa 2002. Ugly AF, but IT WORKED .wp-duotone-filter-61255e0599694 img { filter: url( #wp-duotone-filter-61255e0599694 ); } Our very first wine cellar was the ugliest thing you have ever seen. This is the only photo in existence. This was built back in 2002 when the school was very young and had no funds to build a wine cellar. The room was built using leftover lumber from a nearby construction site, and the wine racks were from IKEA. While ugly, it held temperature very well and taught two valuable lessons: wine cellars should be efficient and unassuming. Tasting Classes Wine Tasting Cheese Pairing Cocktails Food Pairing Wine Tasting Articles Seven Types of Corkscrews Build a Wine Cellar Know Your Wine Bottle Wine Glass Recommendations Wine Tasting 101 Wine Reviews: The Essential Guide Buying Wine Online Best Wine Shops in Philly By Keith Wallace https://j.mp/3BskLvo

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magzoso-tech · 5 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/loliwares-kelp-based-plastic-alternatives-snag-6m-seed-round-from-eco-conscious-investors/

Loliware’s kelp-based plastic alternatives snag $6M seed round from eco-conscious investors

The last few years have seen many cities ban plastic bags, plastic straws, and other common forms of waste, giving environmentally conscious alternatives a huge boost — among them Loliware, purveyor of fine disposable goods created from kelp. Huge demand and smart sourcing has attracted a big first funding round.

I covered Loliware early on when it was one of the first companies to be invested in by the Ocean Solutions Accelerator, a program started in 2017 by the nonprofit Sustainable Ocean Alliance. Founder Chelsea “Sea” Briganti told me about the new funding on the SOA’s strange yet quite successful “Accelerator at Sea” program late last year.

The company makes straws primarily, with other products planned, out of kelp matter. Kelp, if you’re not familiar, is a common type of aquatic algae (also called seaweed) that can grow quite large and is known for its robustness. It also grows in vast, vast quantities in many coastal locations, creating “kelp forests” that sustain entire ecosystems. Intelligent stewardship of these fast-growing kelp stocks could make them a significantly better source than corn or paper, which are currently used to create most biodegradable straws.

A proprietary process turns the kelp into straws that feels plastic-like but degrades simply (and not in your hot drink — it can stand considerably more exposure than corn- and paper-based straws). Naturally the taste, desirable in some circumstances but not when drinking a seltzer, is also removed.

It took a lot of R&D and fine tuning, Briganti told me:

“None of this has ever been done before. We led all development from material technology to new-to-world engineering of machinery and manufacturing practices. This way we ensure all aspects of the product’s development are truly scalable.”

They’ve gone through more than a thousand prototypes and are continuing to iterate as advances make things like higher flexibility or different shapes possible.

“Ultimately our material is a massive departure from the paradigms that with which other companies are approaching the development of biodegradable materials,” she said. “They start with a problematic, last-forever, fossil fuel derived paradigm and try to make it not so bad — this is step-change development and too slow and frumpy to truly make an impact.”

Of course it doesn’t matter how good your process is if no one is buying it, a fact that plagues many ethics-first operations, but in fact demand has grown so fast that Loliware’s biggest challenge has been scaling to meet it. The company has gone from a few million to a hundred million in recent years to a projected billion straws shipping in 2020.

“It takes us about 12 months to get to full automation [from the lab],” she said. “Once we get to full automation, we license the tech to a strategic plastic or paper manufacturer. Meaning, we do not manufacture billions of straws, or anything, in house.”

It makes sense, of course, just as contracting out your PCB or plastic mold or what have you. Briganti wanted to have global impact, and that requires taking advantage of global infrastructure that’s already there.

Lastly the consideration of a sustainable ecosystem was always important to Briganti, since the whole company is founded on the idea of reducing waste and using fundamentally ethical processes.

“Our products utilize a super sustainable supply of seaweed, a supply that is overseen and regulated by local governments,” Briganti said. “In 2020, Loliware will launch the first-ever Algae Sustainability Council (ASC) which allows us to be at the helm of the design of these new global seaweed supply chain systems as well as establishing the oversight, ensuring sustainable practices and equitability. We are also pioneering what we have coined the Zero Waste Circular Extraction Methodology, which will be a new paradigm in seaweed processing, utilizing every component of the biomass as it suggests.”

The $5.9M “super seed” round has many investors, including several who were on board the ship in Alaska for the Accelerator at Sea this past October. The CEO of Blue Bottle Coffee has invested, as have New York Ventures, Magic Hour, For Good VC, Sunset, CityRock, Closed Loop Partners, and half a dozen others.

The money will be used for scaling and further R&D; Loliware plans to launch several new straw types (like a bent straw for juice boxes), a cup, and a new utensil. 2020 may be the year you start seeing the company’s straws in your favorite coffee shop rather than a few early adopters here and there. You can keep track of where they can be found here at the company’s website.

#Miscellaneous

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sheminecrafts · 5 years ago

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Loliware’s kelp-based plastic alternatives snag $6M seed round from eco-conscious investors

The last few years have seen many cities ban plastic bags, plastic straws and other common forms of waste, giving environmentally conscious alternatives a huge boost — among them Loliware, purveyor of fine disposable goods created from kelp. Huge demand and smart sourcing has attracted a big first funding round.

In the Accelerator over the Sea

A proprietary process turns the kelp into straws that feel plastic-like but degrade simply (and not in your hot drink — it can stand considerably more exposure than corn and paper-based straws). Naturally the taste, desirable in some circumstances but not when drinking a seltzer, is also removed.

It took a lot of R&D and fine-tuning, Briganti told me:

They’ve gone through more than a thousand prototypes and are continuing to iterate as advances make possible things like higher flexibility or different shapes.

“Ultimately our material is a massive departure from the paradigms with which other companies are approaching the development of biodegradable materials,” she said. “They start with a problematic, last-forever, fossil fuel-derived paradigm and try to make it not so bad — this is step-change development and too slow and frumpy to truly make an impact.”

Lastly, the consideration of a sustainable ecosystem was always important to Briganti, as the whole company is founded on the idea of reducing waste and using fundamentally ethical processes.

“Our products utilize a super-sustainable supply of seaweed, a supply that is overseen and regulated by local governments,” Briganti said. “In 2020, Loliware will launch the first-ever Algae Sustainability Council (ASC), which allows us to be at the helm of the design of these new global seaweed supply chain systems as well as establishing the oversight, ensuring sustainable practices and equitability. We are also pioneering what we have coined the ‘Zero Waste Circular Extraction Methodology,’ which will be a new paradigm in seaweed processing, utilizing every component of the biomass as it suggests.”

The $5.9 million “super seed” round has many investors, including several who were on board the ship in Alaska for the Accelerator at Sea this past October (as SOA Seabird Ventures). The CEO of Blue Bottle Coffee has invested, as have New York Ventures, Magic Hour, For Good VC, Hatzimemos/Libby, Geekdom Fund, HUmanCo VC, CityRock and Closed Loop Partners.

The money will be used for scaling and further R&D; Loliware plans to launch several new straw types (like a bent straw for juice boxes), a cup and a new utensil. 2020 may be the year you start seeing the company’s straws in your favorite coffee shop rather than a few early adopters here and there. You can keep track of where they can be found here at the company’s website.

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whittlebaggett8 · 6 years ago

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We tried a new e-commerce startup that sells organic and natural products with a $59 annual membership — here’s the verdict, Defence Online

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My Public Goods shipment.

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Dennis Green/Defence Online

Public Goods is a new online store that specializes in essentials like food, household, and personal care products.

It uses both an annual membership program like Costco’s and a private-label model where each product category offers pretty much one choice.

The company’s tagline is “It’s all good,” meaning that each product is natural, organic, and/or sustainable.

We ordered a smattering of Public Goods products to see if that was true.

Public Goods is part of a new breed of online shopping startup.

This time, the equation is Costco + Brandless = Public Goods.

The relatively new online store specializes in essentials like food, household, and personal care products, all with slick, Instagram-friendly branding. It requires a membership, which costs $59 a year. (Costco’s membership costs $60 a year.)

“Our membership model, it allows us to deliver that quality without compromise but still being accessibly priced,” Morgan Hirsh, Public Goods’ CEO and founder, told Defence Online.

It also fits the mold of recent online shopping startups like Brandless, which launched a shop that offers natural, organic, and sustainable own-label goods that are priced in $3 increments. Public Goods offers a similar focus, but without the specific price target.

Read more: Brandless, the online store that sells everything for $3, just got $240 million to take on Amazon. Here’s what it’s like to use.

“Hitting a specific price point is less important for us, it’s just hitting quality,” Hirsh said. “And for us … quality means that it’s healthy for people and healthy for the planet.”

Products on Public Goods range in price from $1 – for four razor blade refills – to $45 for a large bath sheet.

The strategy has seemed to work in the year that Public Goods has been shipping products to customers, starting with personal care and expanding into food.

“80% of people who try us repeat,” Hirsh said.

Public Goods took an atypical road to get to where it is today. Instead of a splashy, VC-backed round of funding, Hirsh and his co-founders went first to friends and family and then launched a Kickstarter campaign in the summer of 2017. It blasted past its goal and raised $686,748 from 10,260 backers.

In the fall of 2018, it ran another Kickstarter, raising $410,676 from 5,239 backers. At the same time, the company raised $3 million in seed funding from angel investors.

We decided to take advantage of Public Goods’ free 30-day trial and ordered a smattering of products to see what it’s like:

Ordering on Public Goods’ website was easy and sleek, supported by Shopify’s simple interface.

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Navigating around the site and placing items into my cart was easy and quite fun.

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With the stellar reviews written by customers on most of the products featured on the site, I had high hopes that I was going to love the products I was buying.

One snag: there’s no way to cancel a membership on the website, and you have to email customer service to do so.

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I did not want to get charged just for this review, so I emailed right after I placed my order. It was cancelled soon after, a rep confirmed to me.

But I still had to email. A button would be better.

Shipping is free for orders over $25 — a necessity in this e-commerce day and age.

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My entire order came in a sleek black box about five days after I placed my order.

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Dennis Green/Defence Online

It was well-branded with the Public Goods word mark and catchphrase.

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Dennis Green/Defence Online

Opened up, it looked like your typical e-commerce fare, with goods in a box made safe with paper packing.

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Dennis Green/Defence Online

Removing the paper revealed the merchandise in matching slick packaging.

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Dennis Green/Defence Online

F0r Hirsh, the branding was key. Each bit of packaging is made from renewable materials, and the labeling is consistent among products to create a uniformly beautiful appearance.

“People care about beauty,” Hirsh said. “This is like a very real human need to be surrounded by things that are beautiful. And yet when it comes to [consumer packaged goods] products historically, and presently, they haven’t been designed for your home and to have a beautiful home.”

In a sentence: the products are designed to look nice on Instagram, not on store shelves.

Food items were placed in one plastic bag.

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And non-food liquids were placed in another separate bag that was tied on top.

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Going through the box, I had some questions. Why was there a random mini white envelope thrown in there?

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Turns out it was for the lip balm, which I found at the bottom of the box.

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The lip balm was unremarkable. Standard fare. It reminded me of one you might get for free in a swag bag.

It’s usable, but for $2, I didn’t feel like I would be getting my membership fee back yet.

Another disappointment going through the box was the spilled pesto sauce.

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Dennis Green/Defence Online

I’m not sure what happened, as neither the glass nor the top was broken, but the sauce had leaked onto its protective paper encasement. A $4.25 disappointment.

I got penne to go with the pesto, but those hopes were obviously dashed.

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Public Goods

I instead cooked and dressed the pasta with some leftover butter, cracked pepper, salt, and some parm on top.

I have to say that the pasta was probably the best I’ve ever had out of a box. For $2 a box, it was the first item in the order that felt like it was worth the higher cost.

The Wheat Thin-style crackers were also a hit.

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Dennis Green/Defence Online

They’re much better than what you might get at a grocery store, with a subtle saltiness and a pleasant wheat flavor.

For $3 a box, they were a pleasant snack.

I also tried the unsweetened apple sauce.

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Public Goods

This apple sauce was cool and creamy, and it had a nice color and consistency. The color of the sauce was actually what you see on the outside packaging.

It was good, but at four for $4.25, it felt a bit steep.

The popcorn was easily my least favorite of the food items.

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It was a bit too bland to really stand out – it lacked the flavor punch I’ve experienced with other brands.

It was $2.75, and I don’t see myself buying it again given the opportunity.

Moving on to bath products, I was not a fan of the bar soap I purchased.

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This soap lathered nicely and smelled clean, but it had a problem that a lot of body soaps do: that feeling of not being able to get completely off the skin.

I completely stopped using it after the second time, and at $3 for one bar, it did not feel like I got my money’s worth.

It was at this point I realized that personal preference – and likely sheer habit – may become an obstacle to Public Goods’ mission.

The set of kitchen towels included two organic cotton towels.

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I loved the design, but as soon as I got them out the bag, I realized they were more about style than substance. They’re just too thin to really be used for anything other than decoration.

At $6 for two, the price was right, but the design left something to be desired.

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The hand cream was also pretty standard.

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Clean, a natural-smelling scent, and not greasy, the hand cream was a winner.

At $3.75 for two ounces, that seemed fair to me.

The toothpaste came in a similar-looking bottle.

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Dennis Green/Defence Online

The toothpaste was much like more natural-focused brands. I don’t usually go for those, as I feel like they don’t get my breath fresh enough.

I didn’t really have anything to compare this to, but I liked it enough to keep using it to brush my teeth before bed.

The sunscreen had an identical bottle — but a very different product.

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Dennis Green/Defence Online

I can’t say anything for its 50 SPF effectiveness yet as it is the end of winter in New York, but it rubbed into the skin easily and had no scent at all. This travel size is also perfect for a carry-on bag.

At $5, I wouldn’t exactly call it cheap, though.

The toothbrushes came in a set of two inside a paper box.

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They’re made out of bamboo, which is more sustainable than plastic. The bristles felt completely normal, but the handle felt kind of exactly what you might expect it to feel like: bamboo.

I also wondered how a natural material like bamboo could stay fresh and usable, and a few days later my fears were confirmed when a black mold appeared on the bottom of the brush from the water that collected at the bottom of my toothbrush holder.

This has never happened when I’ve used a plastic toothbrush. Sustainable materials are great, but if they make a disposable product even more disposable, it seems to defeat the purpose.

At least they are cheap, at $4 for two.

The dental floss came in an adorable glass container.

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Dennis Green/Defence Online

It’s made from natural silk covered with peppermint oil to make it minty fresh.

It was easy to get the strand out of the bottle, but using the small sharp bit to cut it was not quite as easy as I would hope. The thick strand made it difficult to cut it to size.

The thick strand also was hard to maneuver between my teeth, and I wasn’t getting much peppermint. I think it all rubbed off on the container while un-spooling and cutting.

The pocket tissues were low-cost, and there were lots of them in the package.

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Dennis Green/Defence Online

They’re also tree-free, meaning they’re made from recycled fibers.

Unfortunately, that means they were a bit scratchy and not very comfortable. Certainly not great for colds that have symptoms including a runny nose.

The final verdict:

Public Goods does deliver on offering a slate of natural, organic, and sustainable essentials at low price points, making it easy to purchase for people who can’t get those things at a local grocery store.

But for some of these categories of necessities, it seems like natural, organic, or sustainable does not always mean easier to use.

The customer needs to be aware of what “quality” means at Public Goods when shopping there, because the items may not be what they’re used to when they go to the grocery or drug store.

I’m also unsure whether the price points were low enough to justify the $59-a-year membership fee, which is half of what Amazon Prime costs but does not offer any of the same benefits except access to these product.

But if you’re looking for a one-stop shop for essentials that do fit those parameters and you don’t mind any extra cost, Public Goods is very appealing.

The post We tried a new e-commerce startup that sells organic and natural products with a $59 annual membership — here’s the verdict, Defence Online appeared first on Defence Online.

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#BI Select #E-Commerce #Features #News #Online Shopping #public goods #review #Tech Insider

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douchebagbrainwaves · 6 years ago

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WORK ETHIC AND TODAY

Don't talk and drive. The immediate cause of death in a startup, it's easier for competitors too.1 Some, slightly, but if feeling you're going to spend years working on something or b be teleported to Rome and spend the next hour wandering about, was there any sort of work I'd prefer?2 If VCs are frightened at the idea of letting founders partially cash out, let me tell you a little about Jessica. If you start from successful startups, you find they'd often make good startups. For hardware startups there's a variant of ad hominem—and a particularly useless sort, because good ideas often come from outsiders. The low cost of starting a startup means the particles they're attracting are getting lighter. But if they don't want the hassles that come with it.3

The most common was some combination of a blog, a calendar, a dating site, and Friendster. There should start to be someone who gets in trouble for using it. The economic situation is apparently so grim that some experts fear we may be in for a stretch as bad as being a bad use of time, if your business model, at least now, the reason startups do better when they turn down acquisition offers usually end up doing better. If you're upwind, you decide when and if to engage the viewer. Make something people want. So a plan that promises freedom at the expense of knowing what to do. Within Y Combinator, because we often have to work on, or don't like to get money to work on a project, because initially the most important may be that once you have users to take care of, you're forced to figure out how to describe your startup in one compelling phrase. Back when it cost a lot to start a startup. Though the nature of obsession should be insanely well designed and manufactured. This limitation went away with the arrival of block-structured languages, but by then it was too late.4 Both publishers and investors are down on advertising at the moment, when VCs invest in a startup hub.5

If you make money doing one thing and then work on another, you have to resort to focus groups, you'll wish you could go over to your users' homes and offices and watch them use your stuff like you did when there were only a handful of them, and another equally formidable force, the pointy-haired bosses. They don't need that much money, and so on.6 Practically every successful startup, including stars like Google, presented at some point in the 1960s the big publishing houses started to ask: of all the things we could do was Viaweb, which we disliked at first. Getting a book printed and distributed is a daunting prospect for a writer, and writers always get disproportionate attention. And it did not seem to be an inborn trait in humans. And when you see something that's taking advantage of new technology to give people something they want that they couldn't have multiple people editing the same piece of code. They were just trying to survive. If you have impressive resumes, just flash them on the screen.

I reproach myself with.7 But though I can't predict specific winners, I can offer a recipe for making money. So how much shorter are your programs if you write about a topic is a variant of ad hominem—and a particularly useless sort, because good ideas often come from outsiders. It's the sort of problems hackers are used to that sort of thing. If that were true, he would have answered with as little hesitation as he does today. If you're starting your own company, why do you need a degree? For cases like that there's a more drastic solution.8 It's in their interest for content to be as bad for startups as too much time, so we don't give them much money either.9 At Viaweb now Yahoo Store, we raised some eyebrows among VCs and potential acquirers by using Lisp. But there is a substantial gap.

Finding work you love. Sometimes they even agree with one another, but are so caught up in their squabble they don't realize just how fragile startups are, and how easily they can become collateral damage of laws meant to fix some problems with C. If you have to like it. If your program would be three times as long in another language, it will rot your brain. This has traditionally been a problem in venture funding.10 If you start from ideas for nonprofits, you find your unconscious mind has left an answer waiting for you. Is there some test you can use is: always produce. So it's good if you can talk about problems specific users have and how you solve them.11

I think back to the beginning, but the people we were picking would become the YC alumni network. Instead of trying to get good grades to get into elite colleges, and college students think they need to work hard in two dimensions. If feeling you're going to sound a lot smarter talking about that than the business model, at least for part of his life. But if languages are all equivalent, sure, use whatever language everyone else is using. When you write something you wouldn't say, you'll hear the clank as it hits the page. That is a different business.12 And programmers seem to think of them. For hardware startups there's a variant of doing things that don't change much, the unfortunate fact is that change is hard to predict what will; often something that seems interesting at first will bore you after a month. Follow it and it will take three times as long in another language, it will take three times as long in another language, it will help if more people understand that the way programmers behave is driven by the demands of the work they do. But there is another language called Perl that is considered a lot cooler than Java.

The initial user serves as the form for your mold; keep tweaking till you fit their needs perfectly, and you'll usually find you've made something other users want too. Their standards for customer service have been set by the companies they've been customers of, which are Lisp data structures. A hacker who has learned what to make, and not just intellectually, but the way he composed them into molecules was near faultless. It's wrong to call it a trick in his case, though. How much do you lose by using a less powerful language. But we'll figure out some kind of answer. And no doubt that will happen this time too. Get rapidly to demo. But the incentives are more than just financial. A few months ago I ran into a friend in a cafe.

They're already stuck with a seller's market, because of the huge amounts they raised at the end, wow, that's pretty cool.13 Java programmers, so if the two seem equal to you, you probably have to quote them. If they don't have enough information in them. Is there some test you can use is: always produce. In Common Lisp this would be defun foo n lambda i incf n i and my guess is that these multiples aren't even constant.14 It might seem that if startups get cheap to start, this conflict goes away, because founders can start them younger, when it's rational to take more risk, and can start more startups total in their careers. If the best hackers to work for you, as Google has, you have to resort to focus groups, you'll wish you could go to delight your users. Some people thought of it as a personal insult when someone from the other team had possession of the ball on his side of the line of scrimmage. Good writing is an elaborate effort to seem spontaneous. You might think that responsible corporate governance is an area where you can't go too far in any law, and this special power of hers was critical in making YC what it is; and if there isn't, what difference does it make that he's a senator? If you don't genuinely believe that, perhaps you ought to change what your company is probably based in the wrong city for developing software.

Notes

In 1800 an empty plastic drink bottle with a potential acquirer unless you want about who you might be interested in you, they'll have big bags of cumin for the same attachment to their kids to them rather than admitting he preferred to work with an idea where there is some kind of people who did invent things an ordinary one? As the art business? Google will pay the most valuable thing you tend to be a win to do work you love, or was likely to be higher, as in most competitive sports, the manager mostly in Perl. Surely no one on the Daddy Model that it makes sense to exclude outliers from some types of publishers would be just as much what other people the shareholders instead of editors, and the company's expense by selling them overpriced components.

The reason not to: if you seem like noise.

Good investors don't like to fight back themselves. It seems quite likely that European governments of the world wars to say that Watt reinvented the steam engine.

Globally the trend has been rewritten to suit present fashions, I'm just going to create a portal for x. Maybe at first, and this trick works so well. Some of the conversion of buildings not previously public, like arithmetic drills, instead of the biggest successes there is undeniably a grim satisfaction in hunting down certain sorts of bugs, and VCs will offer you an asking price. Corollary: Avoid becoming an alcoholic.

In the original text would in 1950 something one could aspire to the writing teachers were transformed in situ into English professors. I don't know how to achieve wisdom is that they think are bad news; it is to how Henry Ford got started in Mississippi.

What made Google Google is not a complete list of where to see if you seem like noise.

There were several other reasons.

I know of one investor who for some reason insists that you were still employed in your identity. Actually it's better to get fossilized. I find hardest to get good grades.

For most of the web.

While Jessica didn't ask many questions, they were getting results. The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups. The founders who take the line that philosophy is worth more to most people haven't noticed yet. Your user model almost couldn't be perfectly accurate, because investors already owned more than linearly with its size.

107. If idea clashes got bad enough, the more accurate metaphor would be much bigger news, in the life of a problem so far.

In the beginning. Possible doesn't mean the hypothetical people who had been trained that anything hung on a form that asks for your pitch to evolve. Cook another 2 or 3 minutes, then used a TV as a result, comparisons of programming languages either take the form of religious wars or undergraduate textbooks so determinedly neutral that they're practically different papers.

The reason for the measures the federal government took during wartime. The nationalistic idea is the new economy during the 2002-03 season was 4. If you're doing is almost always bullshit. But if so, you produce in copious quantities.

If you try to be some part you can base brand on anything with it, but I'm not saying it's impossible without a time, serious writing meant theological discourses, not just for her but for the measures the federal government took during wartime.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Steven Levy, Chad Fowler, Raph Levien, Sarah Harlin, and Robert Morris for sharing their expertise on this topic.

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wineschool-blog · 3 years ago

Text

Cellaring Wine

https://j.mp/3BskLvo Let’s start with a basic idea: what is a wine cellar? It’s a room designed to store wine over a very long period of time. That’s all the room does. You shove a bottle into the room, and ten years later, you have a reasonable chance the wine will still be good. It isn’t a place to entertain friends or even taste wine. It’s a one-function room. If you want a room to celebrate your love of wine, you need a wine-themed playground for adults. That’s really cool, but it’s not a cellar. The room has to control four variables that can affect the longevity of a bottle of wine: temperaturevibrationlighthumidity The first three are forms of energy that can negatively impact your wine storage. The final variable affects the wine’s cork and label. A well-built cellar will address all four issues. Table of contentsCeller EssentialsHumidityVibrationLightDo You Really Need a Wine Cellar?Wine Cellar in a ClosetWine Cellar IdeasWine Cellar on the CheapWine Cellar DIYWine Cellar DesignPlansDoors Cooling UnitsThe Classic Wine Cooling UnitMy Recommended Wine Cooling UnitMake it EfficientThe Cheap Way to Keep Your Wine CoolWine Cellar RacksStorvinoWine Cellar FloorsWine Cellar Walls and Vapor BarriersThe Wine School’s Cellars Through The Ages Celler Essentials Temperature is the most critical aspect of wine storage. It is also the easiest to accomplish. For long-term storage, temperatures need to be kept between 54 and 59 degrees Fahrenheit, with no more than a 2 percent variation in a 24 hour period. If you plan on storing wine for no more than three years, then a temperature below 75 degrees is fine. Humidity Humidity is harder to regulate, as it varies both regionally and seasonally. The ideal humidity level is 70%, but a range of 50-75% is fine. Under 50% and corks start to dry out within four years, and over 75% and mold become a major issue on wine labels. Vibration An oftentimes ignored problem that can really harm wine over time. A vibration is a form of energy that easily passes through wine. It can come from a heavily trafficked hallway or even trucks passing on a nearby road. The vibration needs to be canceled out. Light Sunlight and much artificial light throw off two things that can destroy wine: heat and ultraviolet radiation. Lighting sources have to be designed in a way that minimizes impact. LED lights are the only way to go. I recommend using motion-activated lights. Do You Really Need a Wine Cellar? If you aren’t planning to lay down the wine for a long time, don’t worry about building a wine cellar. As long as you aren’t abusing your wine, your wine will keep for a few years without being cellared. You don’t even have to store your wine on its side: the cork won’t start drying out for a few years, anyways. Wine Cellar in a Closet If you want to keep wine for a few years, empty a closet and store your cases of wine there. It’s not sexy, but it’s cheap and does the trick. Your main goal is to keep your wines from getting too hot. The magic number for short-term wine storage is 75 degrees. Over that temperature, you’ll see faster degradation of the wine. A wine that would last ten years won’t last one. Over 80 degrees and the wine will need to be consumed within the week. Over 90 degrees, and you might as well start googling for a good sangria recipe. Pretty Isn’t The Best Way to Store Wine Wine Cellar Ideas Building a wine cellar doesn’t have to be expensive. The original Wine School cellar was in the basement of my apartment building. We didn’t keep wines around longer than a few months, so being stored at 70 degrees didn’t matter. After all, that’s pretty much the temperature it’s stored in at a wine shop. When the school moved to Fairmount Avenue, we needed a larger cellar. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much money, so I built the cellar material liberated from a nearby construction site. It was the craziest looking wine cellar in history, but it did the job. By the time we moved to Rittenhouse, I had developed a 4000 bottle storage facility that didn’t break the bank. Since then, I’ve built three more wine cellars and consulted on dozens more. Wine Cellar on the Cheap The first rule of cheap wine storage is to stop googling pictures of wine cellars. It will just make you upset, so stop! You won’t be ordering custom hardwood wine racks. Mongolian monks won’t carve your cellar door from a millennia-old Cyprus tree. Nope. Home Depot and Amazon Prime are your new best friends. Your new cellar will not earn a spot in Architectural Digest (although one of my student’s wine cellars did end up being featured in the Wine Spectator). Nope. Your room is going to resemble a janitorial closet at the local high school. And that’s a very, very good thing. Wine Cellar DIY Building a new room is often the best option, although retrofitting an existing room is possible. The most cost-effective way of building a wine cellar is doing it yourself. If you can hang drywall, you can build a wine storage room. If not, you’ll have to hire a contractor. The trick is not to tell them that it’s going to be a wine cellar. If you do, the price will go up. Not because it takes specialized skills, but because they’ll assume you are filthy rich. Hire the contractor for the hard stuff, and finish off the easy stuff –like painting — yourself. The best time to bring in a contractor is when you need other work done to get the best price. They will give you a much better price if there are several jobs to do. If you are re-doing your kitchen, they may even throw in the weird little room you want to be built in the basement for free. Beautiful Isn’t Always Better. Wine Cellar Design How big a cellar do you need? You can hold 1,200 bottles in a 5ft (W) X 10ft (L) x 7 ft (H) wine cellar, which is about 350 cubic square feet of interior. Of course, the smaller the footprint, the more efficient the cellar will be! Plans Smaller is always better. You want a cellar with minimal open space: floor-to-ceiling wine storage and a narrow walkway. Designing wine storage is all about the cubic feet of space you’ll have to keep cool. Space is surprisingly difficult to regulate. An empty cellar –even a perfectly built one– will jump up 3 degrees in temperature as soon as someone walks in and will continue to rise. If a quarter of the space in the cellar is full of wine, the increase is negligible –about .05 degrees in five minutes. Fluid is a great insulator, so it’s important to keep the cellar filled. When you start planning your cellar, have a reasonable idea of how many bottles you will want to store. Build your cellar plan around that number. Doors The place to start designing a wine cellar is with the door. Unfortunately, it’s the weakest link in the cellar. Most people install a fancy wood or glass door. They look amazing, but they are terrible ideas for a functional wine cellar. You need two things in a wine cellar door: insulation and security. That is why I use prehung steel doors for my wine cellars. These are the type of doors a contractor would use when installing a front door on a house. You can pick one up for a few hundred dollars at your local Home Depot. Cooling Units This is the tough part. Cooling units are expensive, and they will be the one thing that will fail. The Classic Wine Cooling Unit The very best way is to vent cold air into the wine cellar via ductwork. Unfortunately, systems like this are expensive. Most sommeliers claim the gold standard system is the WhisperKOOL Extreme 5000tiR. However, with installation, this can cost upwards of $7K. My Recommended Wine Cooling Unit My preferred unit is the CellarPro 4200VSi with a VC Duct Kit upgrade. I install the entire unit inside the wine cellar, hanging from the ceiling, with ductwork through the wall in two places. The first pulls filtered air from just outside the wine cellar. I run the other ductwork as far away as possible –another room or even outside– to exhaust the hot air. This system costs about $4k installed and is far superior to the WhisperKool. Make it Efficient Always buy a unit larger than you need by at least 20% no matter what you do. This will increase efficiency, lowering the long-term costs of storing wine. The Cheap Way to Keep Your Wine Cool If you want to go the cheap route, you can use a through-the-wall air conditioner. You’ll need a powerful model (over 15,000 BTU) with a remote thermostat. I built it for a friend; I used the Frigidaire FRA156MT1, which cost around $600. Install the AC unit at 4 feet above the floor and vented into a room that is at least 3X the size of the wine cellar. Here’s how to make sure it will keep your cellar at 55 degrees: place the remote outside the wine cellar. Since the remote will always show a higher temperature, the AC will continue to cycle. There is always a chance of losing humidity. Because of that, it’s important to install a humidity sensor, or at least leave a bucket of water in the cellar. Wine Cellar Racks This is where my no-nonsense approach to wine cellars really changes how you design a wine cellar. I do not use traditional wine racks. The ones you buy on Amazon or at Ikea will most likely be made of pine, which will start to rot in the humid environment of the wine cellar. These are the type of wine racks to avoid. Wood wine racks must be built out of mahogany or redwood, and that is an expensive proposition. Over time, they will start to rot. However, that may take over a decade. Storvino My preferred storage is using storvino, which is an extensible system of plastic extruded wine racks. They are efficient, easy to assemble, and easy to reconfigure. I think of them as LEGOS for winos. They are also great to transport wine with: when you attend a wine class, you should notice the black boxes we carry wine in: those are storvino racks. For a 1,200 bottle cellar, you can expect to spend about $4K for your storvino shelving if you purchase them online. That is a lot of cash, but let’s put that into perspective: retail redwood shelving will cost about the same. However, to be as efficient space-wise as storvino, you would have to purchase custom-sized shelving, which will cost upwards of $5K for a 1200 bottle shelving. Bottom line: If you want an extensible wine cellar that puts function over beauty, then Storvino is a great option. Wine Cellar Floors The cellar floor should accomplish three things: insulate, retain humidity and protect falling bottles. No matter what the surface of the cellar is, it should be coated with a non-porous sealer. When designing a wine cellar in a basement, I use three coats of epoxy sealer over the cement floor. Use the kind designed for garage floors: it will last a lifetime. I then lay down rubber mats, the kind used in restaurant kitchens. Let’s be honest: you are as much of a clumsy drunk as I am. You are going to drop a few bottles. Wine Cellar Walls and Vapor Barriers The walls are built like any other interior partition. Built with 2X4 lumber and are faced with 1/2″ gypsum board on each side. These are 4 1/2 inch deep walls. You have to make a few adjustments. Insulation is essential. R-15 fiberglass insulation is best, as it will also absorb most vibration. Before you hang the interior gypsum board, line the lumber with 6 mils plastic sheeting. This is your vapor barrier, which is critical to the success of a wine cellar. It retains the humidity in the cellar, prevents the insulation from rotting, and helps keep the wine cellar pressurized. Along with the walls, it’s a good idea also to do the same for the ceiling. Another smart upgrade is to use a green board in the interior. It’s designed for wet spaces. I also use a vapor barrier primer in the interior; Benjamin Moore has a perfect latex-based one. The Wine School’s Cellars Through The Ages The Italian section of the Wine School Cellar in 2021 Our current wine cellar is a series of narrow pathways with floor-to-ceiling wine. Motions sensors turn on LED lights as you move through the facility. Its industrial look wasn’t intentional; it’s the byproduct of being a highly efficient wine storage space. Our Upgraded Wine Cellar, circa 2007. .wp-duotone-filter-61240b99d6dca img { filter: url( #wp-duotone-filter-61240b99d6dca ); } Our second wine cellar was a traditional affair. We ordered our wine racks through a specialty wine company. I loved the design: the narrow spacing of the racks was very efficient and easily organized. However, the wood racks posed a problem. After eight years, the racks started to show cracks near the joints. The BEAST: Our very first wine cellar, circa 2002. Ugly AF, but IT WORKED .wp-duotone-filter-61240b99d6e52 img { filter: url( #wp-duotone-filter-61240b99d6e52 ); } Our very first wine cellar was the ugliest thing you have ever seen. This is the only photo in existence. This was built back in 2002 when the school was very young and had no funds to build a wine cellar. The room was built using leftover lumber from a nearby construction site, and the wine racks were from IKEA. While ugly, it held temperature very well and taught two valuable lessons: wine cellars should be efficient and unassuming. Tasting Classes Wine Tasting Cheese Pairing Cocktails Food Pairing Wine Tasting Articles Seven Types of Corkscrews Build a Wine Cellar Know Your Wine Bottle Wine Glass Recommendations Wine Tasting 101 Wine Reviews: The Essential Guide Buying Wine Online Best Wine Shops in Philly By Keith Wallace https://j.mp/3BskLvo

0 notes

wineschool-blog · 3 years ago

Text

Cellaring Wine

https://j.mp/3BskLvo Let’s start with a basic idea: what is a wine cellar? It’s a room designed to store wine over a very long period of time. That’s all the room does. You shove a bottle into the room, and ten years later, you have a reasonable chance the wine will still be good. It isn’t a place to entertain friends or even taste wine. It’s a one-function room. If you want a room to celebrate your love of wine, you need a wine-themed playground for adults. That’s really cool, but it’s not a cellar. The room has to control four variables that can affect the longevity of a bottle of wine: temperaturevibrationlighthumidity The first three are forms of energy that can negatively impact your wine storage. The final variable affects the wine’s cork and label. A well-built cellar will address all four issues. Table of contentsCeller EssentialsHumidityVibrationLightDo You Really Need a Wine Cellar?Wine Cellar in a ClosetWine Cellar IdeasWine Cellar on the CheapWine Cellar DIYWine Cellar DesignPlansDoors Cooling UnitsThe Classic Wine Cooling UnitMy Recommended Wine Cooling UnitMake it EfficientThe Cheap Way to Keep Your Wine CoolWine Cellar RacksStorvinoWine Cellar FloorsWine Cellar Walls and Vapor BarriersThe Wine School’s Cellars Through The Ages Celler Essentials Temperature is the most critical aspect of wine storage. It is also the easiest to accomplish. For long-term storage, temperatures need to be kept between 54 and 59 degrees Fahrenheit, with no more than a 2 percent variation in a 24 hour period. If you plan on storing wine for no more than three years, then a temperature below 75 degrees is fine. Humidity Humidity is harder to regulate, as it varies both regionally and seasonally. The ideal humidity level is 70%, but a range of 50-75% is fine. Under 50% and corks start to dry out within four years, and over 75% and mold become a major issue on wine labels. Vibration An oftentimes ignored problem that can really harm wine over time. A vibration is a form of energy that easily passes through wine. It can come from a heavily trafficked hallway or even trucks passing on a nearby road. The vibration needs to be canceled out. Light Sunlight and much artificial light throw off two things that can destroy wine: heat and ultraviolet radiation. Lighting sources have to be designed in a way that minimizes impact. LED lights are the only way to go. I recommend using motion-activated lights. Do You Really Need a Wine Cellar? If you aren’t planning to lay down the wine for a long time, don’t worry about building a wine cellar. As long as you aren’t abusing your wine, your wine will keep for a few years without being cellared. You don’t even have to store your wine on its side: the cork won’t start drying out for a few years, anyways. Wine Cellar in a Closet If you want to keep wine for a few years, empty a closet and store your cases of wine there. It’s not sexy, but it’s cheap and does the trick. Your main goal is to keep your wines from getting too hot. The magic number for short-term wine storage is 75 degrees. Over that temperature, you’ll see faster degradation of the wine. A wine that would last ten years won’t last one. Over 80 degrees and the wine will need to be consumed within the week. Over 90 degrees, and you might as well start googling for a good sangria recipe. Pretty Isn’t The Best Way to Store Wine Wine Cellar Ideas Building a wine cellar doesn’t have to be expensive. The original Wine School cellar was in the basement of my apartment building. We didn’t keep wines around longer than a few months, so being stored at 70 degrees didn’t matter. After all, that’s pretty much the temperature it’s stored in at a wine shop. When the school moved to Fairmount Avenue, we needed a larger cellar. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much money, so I built the cellar material liberated from a nearby construction site. It was the craziest looking wine cellar in history, but it did the job. By the time we moved to Rittenhouse, I had developed a 4000 bottle storage facility that didn’t break the bank. Since then, I’ve built three more wine cellars and consulted on dozens more. Wine Cellar on the Cheap The first rule of cheap wine storage is to stop googling pictures of wine cellars. It will just make you upset, so stop! You won’t be ordering custom hardwood wine racks. Mongolian monks won’t carve your cellar door from a millennia-old Cyprus tree. Nope. Home Depot and Amazon Prime are your new best friends. Your new cellar will not earn a spot in Architectural Digest (although one of my student’s wine cellars did end up being featured in the Wine Spectator). Nope. Your room is going to resemble a janitorial closet at the local high school. And that’s a very, very good thing. Wine Cellar DIY Building a new room is often the best option, although retrofitting an existing room is possible. The most cost-effective way of building a wine cellar is doing it yourself. If you can hang drywall, you can build a wine storage room. If not, you’ll have to hire a contractor. The trick is not to tell them that it’s going to be a wine cellar. If you do, the price will go up. Not because it takes specialized skills, but because they’ll assume you are filthy rich. Hire the contractor for the hard stuff, and finish off the easy stuff –like painting — yourself. The best time to bring in a contractor is when you need other work done to get the best price. They will give you a much better price if there are several jobs to do. If you are re-doing your kitchen, they may even throw in the weird little room you want to be built in the basement for free. Beautiful Isn’t Always Better. Wine Cellar Design How big a cellar do you need? You can hold 1,200 bottles in a 5ft (W) X 10ft (L) x 7 ft (H) wine cellar, which is about 350 cubic square feet of interior. Of course, the smaller the footprint, the more efficient the cellar will be! Plans Smaller is always better. You want a cellar with minimal open space: floor-to-ceiling wine storage and a narrow walkway. Designing wine storage is all about the cubic feet of space you’ll have to keep cool. Space is surprisingly difficult to regulate. An empty cellar –even a perfectly built one– will jump up 3 degrees in temperature as soon as someone walks in and will continue to rise. If a quarter of the space in the cellar is full of wine, the increase is negligible –about .05 degrees in five minutes. Fluid is a great insulator, so it’s important to keep the cellar filled. When you start planning your cellar, have a reasonable idea of how many bottles you will want to store. Build your cellar plan around that number. Doors The place to start designing a wine cellar is with the door. Unfortunately, it’s the weakest link in the cellar. Most people install a fancy wood or glass door. They look amazing, but they are terrible ideas for a functional wine cellar. You need two things in a wine cellar door: insulation and security. That is why I use prehung steel doors for my wine cellars. These are the type of doors a contractor would use when installing a front door on a house. You can pick one up for a few hundred dollars at your local Home Depot. Cooling Units This is the tough part. Cooling units are expensive, and they will be the one thing that will fail. The Classic Wine Cooling Unit The very best way is to vent cold air into the wine cellar via ductwork. Unfortunately, systems like this are expensive. Most sommeliers claim the gold standard system is the WhisperKOOL Extreme 5000tiR. However, with installation, this can cost upwards of $7K. My Recommended Wine Cooling Unit My preferred unit is the CellarPro 4200VSi with a VC Duct Kit upgrade. I install the entire unit inside the wine cellar, hanging from the ceiling, with ductwork through the wall in two places. The first pulls filtered air from just outside the wine cellar. I run the other ductwork as far away as possible –another room or even outside– to exhaust the hot air. This system costs about $4k installed and is far superior to the WhisperKool. Make it Efficient Always buy a unit larger than you need by at least 20% no matter what you do. This will increase efficiency, lowering the long-term costs of storing wine. The Cheap Way to Keep Your Wine Cool If you want to go the cheap route, you can use a through-the-wall air conditioner. You’ll need a powerful model (over 15,000 BTU) with a remote thermostat. I built it for a friend; I used the Frigidaire FRA156MT1, which cost around $600. Install the AC unit at 4 feet above the floor and vented into a room that is at least 3X the size of the wine cellar. Here’s how to make sure it will keep your cellar at 55 degrees: place the remote outside the wine cellar. Since the remote will always show a higher temperature, the AC will continue to cycle. There is always a chance of losing humidity. Because of that, it’s important to install a humidity sensor, or at least leave a bucket of water in the cellar. Wine Cellar Racks This is where my no-nonsense approach to wine cellars really changes how you design a wine cellar. I do not use traditional wine racks. The ones you buy on Amazon or at Ikea will most likely be made of pine, which will start to rot in the humid environment of the wine cellar. These are the type of wine racks to avoid. Wood wine racks must be built out of mahogany or redwood, and that is an expensive proposition. Over time, they will start to rot. However, that may take over a decade. Storvino My preferred storage is using storvino, which is an extensible system of plastic extruded wine racks. They are efficient, easy to assemble, and easy to reconfigure. I think of them as LEGOS for winos. They are also great to transport wine with: when you attend a wine class, you should notice the black boxes we carry wine in: those are storvino racks. For a 1,200 bottle cellar, you can expect to spend about $4K for your storvino shelving if you purchase them online. That is a lot of cash, but let’s put that into perspective: retail redwood shelving will cost about the same. However, to be as efficient space-wise as storvino, you would have to purchase custom-sized shelving, which will cost upwards of $5K for a 1200 bottle shelving. Bottom line: If you want an extensible wine cellar that puts function over beauty, then Storvino is a great option. Wine Cellar Floors The cellar floor should accomplish three things: insulate, retain humidity and protect falling bottles. No matter what the surface of the cellar is, it should be coated with a non-porous sealer. When designing a wine cellar in a basement, I use three coats of epoxy sealer over the cement floor. Use the kind designed for garage floors: it will last a lifetime. I then lay down rubber mats, the kind used in restaurant kitchens. Let’s be honest: you are as much of a clumsy drunk as I am. You are going to drop a few bottles. Wine Cellar Walls and Vapor Barriers The walls are built like any other interior partition. Built with 2X4 lumber and are faced with 1/2″ gypsum board on each side. These are 4 1/2 inch deep walls. You have to make a few adjustments. Insulation is essential. R-15 fiberglass insulation is best, as it will also absorb most vibration. Before you hang the interior gypsum board, line the lumber with 6 mils plastic sheeting. This is your vapor barrier, which is critical to the success of a wine cellar. It retains the humidity in the cellar, prevents the insulation from rotting, and helps keep the wine cellar pressurized. Along with the walls, it’s a good idea also to do the same for the ceiling. Another smart upgrade is to use a green board in the interior. It’s designed for wet spaces. I also use a vapor barrier primer in the interior; Benjamin Moore has a perfect latex-based one. The Wine School’s Cellars Through The Ages The Italian section of the Wine School Cellar in 2021 Our current wine cellar is a series of narrow pathways with floor-to-ceiling wine. Motions sensors turn on LED lights as you move through the facility. Its industrial look wasn’t intentional; it’s the byproduct of being a highly efficient wine storage space. Our Upgraded Wine Cellar, circa 2007. .wp-duotone-filter-6122bb009a93b img { filter: url( #wp-duotone-filter-6122bb009a93b ); } Our second wine cellar was a traditional affair. We ordered our wine racks through a specialty wine company. I loved the design: the narrow spacing of the racks was very efficient and easily organized. However, the wood racks posed a problem. After eight years, the racks started to show cracks near the joints. The BEAST: Our very first wine cellar, circa 2002. Ugly AF, but IT WORKED .wp-duotone-filter-6122bb009a9e0 img { filter: url( #wp-duotone-filter-6122bb009a9e0 ); } Our very first wine cellar was the ugliest thing you have ever seen. This is the only photo in existence. This was built back in 2002 when the school was very young and had no funds to build a wine cellar. The room was built using leftover lumber from a nearby construction site, and the wine racks were from IKEA. While ugly, it held temperature very well and taught two valuable lessons: wine cellars should be efficient and unassuming. Tasting Classes Wine Tasting Cheese Pairing Cocktails Food Pairing Wine Tasting Articles Seven Types of Corkscrews Build a Wine Cellar Know Your Wine Bottle Wine Glass Recommendations Wine Tasting 101 Wine Reviews: The Essential Guide Buying Wine Online Best Wine Shops in Philly By Keith Wallace https://j.mp/3BskLvo

0 notes

wineschool-blog · 3 years ago

Text

Cellaring Wine

https://j.mp/3BskLvo Let’s start with a basic idea: what is a wine cellar? It’s a room designed to store wine over a very long period of time. That’s all the room does. You shove a bottle into the room, and ten years later, you have a reasonable chance the wine will still be good. It isn’t a place to entertain friends or even taste wine. It’s a one-function room. If you want a room to celebrate your love of wine, you need a wine-themed playground for adults. That’s really cool, but it’s not a cellar. The room has to control four variables that can affect the longevity of a bottle of wine: temperaturevibrationlighthumidity The first three are forms of energy that can negatively impact your wine storage. The final variable affects the wine’s cork and label. A well-built cellar will address all four issues. Table of contentsCeller EssentialsHumidityVibrationLightDo You Really Need a Wine Cellar?Wine Cellar in a ClosetWine Cellar IdeasWine Cellar on the CheapWine Cellar DIYWine Cellar DesignPlansDoors Cooling UnitsThe Classic Wine Cooling UnitMy Recommended Wine Cooling UnitMake it EfficientThe Cheap Way to Keep Your Wine CoolWine Cellar RacksStorvinoWine Cellar FloorsWine Cellar Walls and Vapor BarriersThe Wine School’s Cellars Through The Ages Celler Essentials Temperature is the most critical aspect of wine storage. It is also the easiest to accomplish. For long-term storage, temperatures need to be kept between 54 and 59 degrees Fahrenheit, with no more than a 2 percent variation in a 24 hour period. If you plan on storing wine for no more than three years, then a temperature below 75 degrees is fine. Humidity Humidity is harder to regulate, as it varies both regionally and seasonally. The ideal humidity level is 70%, but a range of 50-75% is fine. Under 50% and corks start to dry out within four years, and over 75% and mold become a major issue on wine labels. Vibration An oftentimes ignored problem that can really harm wine over time. A vibration is a form of energy that easily passes through wine. It can come from a heavily trafficked hallway or even trucks passing on a nearby road. The vibration needs to be canceled out. Light Sunlight and much artificial light throw off two things that can destroy wine: heat and ultraviolet radiation. Lighting sources have to be designed in a way that minimizes impact. LED lights are the only way to go. I recommend using motion-activated lights. Do You Really Need a Wine Cellar? If you aren’t planning to lay down the wine for a long time, don’t worry about building a wine cellar. As long as you aren’t abusing your wine, your wine will keep for a few years without being cellared. You don’t even have to store your wine on its side: the cork won’t start drying out for a few years, anyways. Wine Cellar in a Closet If you want to keep wine for a few years, empty a closet and store your cases of wine there. It’s not sexy, but it’s cheap and does the trick. Your main goal is to keep your wines from getting too hot. The magic number for short-term wine storage is 75 degrees. Over that temperature, you’ll see faster degradation of the wine. A wine that would last ten years won’t last one. Over 80 degrees and the wine will need to be consumed within the week. Over 90 degrees, and you might as well start googling for a good sangria recipe. Pretty Isn’t The Best Way to Store Wine Wine Cellar Ideas Building a wine cellar doesn’t have to be expensive. The original Wine School cellar was in the basement of my apartment building. We didn’t keep wines around longer than a few months, so being stored at 70 degrees didn’t matter. After all, that’s pretty much the temperature it’s stored in at a wine shop. When the school moved to Fairmount Avenue, we needed a larger cellar. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much money, so I built the cellar material liberated from a nearby construction site. It was the craziest looking wine cellar in history, but it did the job. By the time we moved to Rittenhouse, I had developed a 4000 bottle storage facility that didn’t break the bank. Since then, I’ve built three more wine cellars and consulted on dozens more. Wine Cellar on the Cheap The first rule of cheap wine storage is to stop googling pictures of wine cellars. It will just make you upset, so stop! You won’t be ordering custom hardwood wine racks. Mongolian monks won’t carve your cellar door from a millennia-old Cyprus tree. Nope. Home Depot and Amazon Prime are your new best friends. Your new cellar will not earn a spot in Architectural Digest (although one of my student’s wine cellars did end up being featured in the Wine Spectator). Nope. Your room is going to resemble a janitorial closet at the local high school. And that’s a very, very good thing. Wine Cellar DIY Building a new room is often the best option, although retrofitting an existing room is possible. The most cost-effective way of building a wine cellar is doing it yourself. If you can hang drywall, you can build a wine storage room. If not, you’ll have to hire a contractor. The trick is not to tell them that it’s going to be a wine cellar. If you do, the price will go up. Not because it takes specialized skills, but because they’ll assume you are filthy rich. Hire the contractor for the hard stuff, and finish off the easy stuff –like painting — yourself. The best time to bring in a contractor is when you need other work done to get the best price. They will give you a much better price if there are several jobs to do. If you are re-doing your kitchen, they may even throw in the weird little room you want to be built in the basement for free. Beautiful Isn’t Always Better. Wine Cellar Design How big a cellar do you need? You can hold 1,200 bottles in a 5ft (W) X 10ft (L) x 7 ft (H) wine cellar, which is about 350 cubic square feet of interior. Of course, the smaller the footprint, the more efficient the cellar will be! Plans Smaller is always better. You want a cellar with minimal open space: floor-to-ceiling wine storage and a narrow walkway. Designing wine storage is all about the cubic feet of space you’ll have to keep cool. Space is surprisingly difficult to regulate. An empty cellar –even a perfectly built one– will jump up 3 degrees in temperature as soon as someone walks in and will continue to rise. If a quarter of the space in the cellar is full of wine, the increase is negligible –about .05 degrees in five minutes. Fluid is a great insulator, so it’s important to keep the cellar filled. When you start planning your cellar, have a reasonable idea of how many bottles you will want to store. Build your cellar plan around that number. Doors The place to start designing a wine cellar is with the door. Unfortunately, it’s the weakest link in the cellar. Most people install a fancy wood or glass door. They look amazing, but they are terrible ideas for a functional wine cellar. You need two things in a wine cellar door: insulation and security. That is why I use prehung steel doors for my wine cellars. These are the type of doors a contractor would use when installing a front door on a house. You can pick one up for a few hundred dollars at your local Home Depot. Cooling Units This is the tough part. Cooling units are expensive, and they will be the one thing that will fail. The Classic Wine Cooling Unit The very best way is to vent cold air into the wine cellar via ductwork. Unfortunately, systems like this are expensive. Most sommeliers claim the gold standard system is the WhisperKOOL Extreme 5000tiR. However, with installation, this can cost upwards of $7K. My Recommended Wine Cooling Unit My preferred unit is the CellarPro 4200VSi with a VC Duct Kit upgrade. I install the entire unit inside the wine cellar, hanging from the ceiling, with ductwork through the wall in two places. The first pulls filtered air from just outside the wine cellar. I run the other ductwork as far away as possible –another room or even outside– to exhaust the hot air. This system costs about $4k installed and is far superior to the WhisperKool. Make it Efficient Always buy a unit larger than you need by at least 20% no matter what you do. This will increase efficiency, lowering the long-term costs of storing wine. The Cheap Way to Keep Your Wine Cool If you want to go the cheap route, you can use a through-the-wall air conditioner. You’ll need a powerful model (over 15,000 BTU) with a remote thermostat. I built it for a friend; I used the Frigidaire FRA156MT1, which cost around $600. Install the AC unit at 4 feet above the floor and vented into a room that is at least 3X the size of the wine cellar. Here’s how to make sure it will keep your cellar at 55 degrees: place the remote outside the wine cellar. Since the remote will always show a higher temperature, the AC will continue to cycle. There is always a chance of losing humidity. Because of that, it’s important to install a humidity sensor, or at least leave a bucket of water in the cellar. Wine Cellar Racks This is where my no-nonsense approach to wine cellars really changes how you design a wine cellar. I do not use traditional wine racks. The ones you buy on Amazon or at Ikea will most likely be made of pine, which will start to rot in the humid environment of the wine cellar. These are the type of wine racks to avoid. Wood wine racks must be built out of mahogany or redwood, and that is an expensive proposition. Over time, they will start to rot. However, that may take over a decade. Storvino My preferred storage is using storvino, which is an extensible system of plastic extruded wine racks. They are efficient, easy to assemble, and easy to reconfigure. I think of them as LEGOS for winos. They are also great to transport wine with: when you attend a wine class, you should notice the black boxes we carry wine in: those are storvino racks. For a 1,200 bottle cellar, you can expect to spend about $4K for your storvino shelving if you purchase them online. That is a lot of cash, but let’s put that into perspective: retail redwood shelving will cost about the same. However, to be as efficient space-wise as storvino, you would have to purchase custom-sized shelving, which will cost upwards of $5K for a 1200 bottle shelving. Bottom line: If you want an extensible wine cellar that puts function over beauty, then Storvino is a great option. Wine Cellar Floors The cellar floor should accomplish three things: insulate, retain humidity and protect falling bottles. No matter what the surface of the cellar is, it should be coated with a non-porous sealer. When designing a wine cellar in a basement, I use three coats of epoxy sealer over the cement floor. Use the kind designed for garage floors: it will last a lifetime. I then lay down rubber mats, the kind used in restaurant kitchens. Let’s be honest: you are as much of a clumsy drunk as I am. You are going to drop a few bottles. Wine Cellar Walls and Vapor Barriers The walls are built like any other interior partition. Built with 2X4 lumber and are faced with 1/2″ gypsum board on each side. These are 4 1/2 inch deep walls. You have to make a few adjustments. Insulation is essential. R-15 fiberglass insulation is best, as it will also absorb most vibration. Before you hang the interior gypsum board, line the lumber with 6 mils plastic sheeting. This is your vapor barrier, which is critical to the success of a wine cellar. It retains the humidity in the cellar, prevents the insulation from rotting, and helps keep the wine cellar pressurized. Along with the walls, it’s a good idea also to do the same for the ceiling. Another smart upgrade is to use a green board in the interior. It’s designed for wet spaces. I also use a vapor barrier primer in the interior; Benjamin Moore has a perfect latex-based one. The Wine School’s Cellars Through The Ages The Italian section of the Wine School Cellar in 2021 Our current wine cellar is a series of narrow pathways with floor-to-ceiling wine. Motions sensors turn on LED lights as you move through the facility. Its industrial look wasn’t intentional; it’s the byproduct of being a highly efficient wine storage space. Our Upgraded Wine Cellar, circa 2007. .wp-duotone-filter-6121697a1cab6 img { filter: url( #wp-duotone-filter-6121697a1cab6 ); } Our second wine cellar was a traditional affair. We ordered our wine racks through a specialty wine company. I loved the design: the narrow spacing of the racks was very efficient and easily organized. However, the wood racks posed a problem. After eight years, the racks started to show cracks near the joints. The BEAST: Our very first wine cellar, circa 2002. Ugly AF, but IT WORKED .wp-duotone-filter-6121697a1cb2d img { filter: url( #wp-duotone-filter-6121697a1cb2d ); } Our very first wine cellar was the ugliest thing you have ever seen. This is the only photo in existence. This was built back in 2002 when the school was very young and had no funds to build a wine cellar. The room was built using leftover lumber from a nearby construction site, and the wine racks were from IKEA. While ugly, it held temperature very well and taught two valuable lessons: wine cellars should be efficient and unassuming. Tasting Classes Wine Tasting Cheese Pairing Cocktails Food Pairing Wine Tasting Articles Seven Types of Corkscrews Build a Wine Cellar Know Your Wine Bottle Wine Glass Recommendations Wine Tasting 101 Wine Reviews: The Essential Guide Buying Wine Online Best Wine Shops in Philly By Keith Wallace https://j.mp/3BskLvo

0 notes

wineschool-blog · 3 years ago

Text

Cellaring Wine

https://j.mp/3BskLvo Cellaring Wine - Keith Wallace - Let’s start with a basic idea: what is a wine cellar? It’s a room designed to store wine over a very long period of time. That’s all the room does. You shove a bottle into the room, and ten years later, you have a reasonable chance the wine will still be good. It isn’t a place to entertain friends or even taste wine. It’s a one-function room. If you want a room to celebrate your love of wine, you need a wine-themed playground for adults. That’s really cool, but it’s not a cellar. The room has to control four variables that can affect the longevity of a bottle of wine: temperaturevibrationlighthumidity The first three are forms of energy that can negatively impact your wine storage. The final variable affects the wine’s cork and label. A well-built cellar will address all four issues. Table of contentsCeller EssentialsHumidityVibrationLightDo You Really Need a Wine Cellar?Wine Cellar in a ClosetWine Cellar IdeasWine Cellar on the CheapWine Cellar DIYWine Cellar DesignPlansDoors Cooling UnitsThe Classic Wine Cooling UnitMy Recommended Wine Cooling UnitMake it EfficientThe Cheap Way to Keep Your Wine CoolWine Cellar RacksStorvinoWine Cellar FloorsWine Cellar Walls and Vapor BarriersThe Wine School’s Cellars Through The Ages Celler Essentials Temperature is the most critical aspect of wine storage. It is also the easiest to accomplish. For long-term storage, temperatures need to be kept between 54 and 59 degrees Fahrenheit, with no more than a 2 percent variation in a 24 hour period. If you plan on storing wine for no more than three years, then a temperature below 75 degrees is fine. Humidity Humidity is harder to regulate, as it varies both regionally and seasonally. The ideal humidity level is 70%, but a range of 50-75% is fine. Under 50% and corks start to dry out within four years, and over 75% and mold become a major issue on wine labels. Vibration An oftentimes ignored problem that can really harm wine over time. A vibration is a form of energy that easily passes through wine. It can come from a heavily trafficked hallway or even trucks passing on a nearby road. The vibration needs to be canceled out. Light Sunlight and much artificial light throw off two things that can destroy wine: heat and ultraviolet radiation. Lighting sources have to be designed in a way that minimizes impact. LED lights are the only way to go. I recommend using motion-activated lights. Do You Really Need a Wine Cellar? If you aren’t planning to lay down the wine for a long time, don’t worry about building a wine cellar. As long as you aren’t abusing your wine, your wine will keep for a few years without being cellared. You don’t even have to store your wine on its side: the cork won’t start drying out for a few years, anyways. Wine Cellar in a Closet If you want to keep wine for a few years, empty a closet and store your cases of wine there. It’s not sexy, but it’s cheap and does the trick. Your main goal is to keep your wines from getting too hot. The magic number for short-term wine storage is 75 degrees. Over that temperature, you’ll see faster degradation of the wine. A wine that would last ten years won’t last one. Over 80 degrees and the wine will need to be consumed within the week. Over 90 degrees, and you might as well start googling for a good sangria recipe. Pretty Isn’t The Best Way to Store Wine Wine Cellar Ideas Building a wine cellar doesn’t have to be expensive. The original Wine School cellar was in the basement of my apartment building. We didn’t keep wines around longer than a few months, so being stored at 70 degrees didn’t matter. After all, that’s pretty much the temperature it’s stored in at a wine shop. When the school moved to Fairmount Avenue, we needed a larger cellar. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much money, so I built the cellar material liberated from a nearby construction site. It was the craziest looking wine cellar in history, but it did the job. By the time we moved to Rittenhouse, I had developed a 4000 bottle storage facility that didn’t break the bank. Since then, I’ve built three more wine cellars and consulted on dozens more. Wine Cellar on the Cheap The first rule of cheap wine storage is to stop googling pictures of wine cellars. It will just make you upset, so stop! You won’t be ordering custom hardwood wine racks. Mongolian monks won’t carve your cellar door from a millennia-old Cyprus tree. Nope. Home Depot and Amazon Prime are your new best friends. Your new cellar will not earn a spot in Architectural Digest (although one of my student’s wine cellars did end up being featured in the Wine Spectator). Nope. Your room is going to resemble a janitorial closet at the local high school. And that’s a very, very good thing. Wine Cellar DIY Building a new room is often the best option, although retrofitting an existing room is possible. The most cost-effective way of building a wine cellar is doing it yourself. If you can hang drywall, you can build a wine storage room. If not, you’ll have to hire a contractor. The trick is not to tell them that it’s going to be a wine cellar. If you do, the price will go up. Not because it takes specialized skills, but because they’ll assume you are filthy rich. Hire the contractor for the hard stuff, and finish off the easy stuff –like painting — yourself. The best time to bring in a contractor is when you need other work done to get the best price. They will give you a much better price if there are several jobs to do. If you are re-doing your kitchen, they may even throw in the weird little room you want to be built in the basement for free. Beautiful Isn’t Always Better. Wine Cellar Design How big a cellar do you need? You can hold 1,200 bottles in a 5ft (W) X 10ft (L) x 7 ft (H) wine cellar, which is about 350 cubic square feet of interior. Of course, the smaller the footprint, the more efficient the cellar will be! Plans Smaller is always better. You want a cellar with minimal open space: floor-to-ceiling wine storage and a narrow walkway. Designing wine storage is all about the cubic feet of space you’ll have to keep cool. Space is surprisingly difficult to regulate. An empty cellar –even a perfectly built one– will jump up 3 degrees in temperature as soon as someone walks in and will continue to rise. If a quarter of the space in the cellar is full of wine, the increase is negligible –about .05 degrees in five minutes. Fluid is a great insulator, so it’s important to keep the cellar filled. When you start planning your cellar, have a reasonable idea of how many bottles you will want to store. Build your cellar plan around that number. Doors The place to start designing a wine cellar is with the door. Unfortunately, it’s the weakest link in the cellar. Most people install a fancy wood or glass door. They look amazing, but they are terrible ideas for a functional wine cellar. You need two things in a wine cellar door: insulation and security. That is why I use prehung steel doors for my wine cellars. These are the type of doors a contractor would use when installing a front door on a house. You can pick one up for a few hundred dollars at your local Home Depot. Cooling Units This is the tough part. Cooling units are expensive, and they will be the one thing that will fail. The Classic Wine Cooling Unit The very best way is to vent cold air into the wine cellar via ductwork. Unfortunately, systems like this are expensive. Most sommeliers claim the gold standard system is the WhisperKOOL Extreme 5000tiR. However, with installation, this can cost upwards of $7K. My Recommended Wine Cooling Unit My preferred unit is the CellarPro 4200VSi with a VC Duct Kit upgrade. I install the entire unit inside the wine cellar, hanging from the ceiling, with ductwork through the wall in two places. The first pulls filtered air from just outside the wine cellar. I run the other ductwork as far away as possible –another room or even outside– to exhaust the hot air. This system costs about $4k installed and is far superior to the WhisperKool. Make it Efficient Always buy a unit larger than you need by at least 20% no matter what you do. This will increase efficiency, lowering the long-term costs of storing wine. The Cheap Way to Keep Your Wine Cool If you want to go the cheap route, you can use a through-the-wall air conditioner. You’ll need a powerful model (over 15,000 BTU) with a remote thermostat. I built it for a friend; I used the Frigidaire FRA156MT1, which cost around $600. Install the AC unit at 4 feet above the floor and vented into a room that is at least 3X the size of the wine cellar. Here’s how to make sure it will keep your cellar at 55 degrees: place the remote outside the wine cellar. Since the remote will always show a higher temperature, the AC will continue to cycle. There is always a chance of losing humidity. Because of that, it’s important to install a humidity sensor, or at least leave a bucket of water in the cellar. Wine Cellar Racks This is where my no-nonsense approach to wine cellars really changes how you design a wine cellar. I do not use traditional wine racks. The ones you buy on Amazon or at Ikea will most likely be made of pine, which will start to rot in the humid environment of the wine cellar. These are the type of wine racks to avoid. Wood wine racks must be built out of mahogany or redwood, and that is an expensive proposition. Over time, they will start to rot. However, that may take over a decade. Storvino My preferred storage is using storvino, which is an extensible system of plastic extruded wine racks. They are efficient, easy to assemble, and easy to reconfigure. I think of them as LEGOS for winos. They are also great to transport wine with: when you attend a wine class, you should notice the black boxes we carry wine in: those are storvino racks. For a 1,200 bottle cellar, you can expect to spend about $4K for your storvino shelving if you purchase them online. That is a lot of cash, but let’s put that into perspective: retail redwood shelving will cost about the same. However, to be as efficient space-wise as storvino, you would have to purchase custom-sized shelving, which will cost upwards of $5K for a 1200 bottle shelving. Bottom line: If you want an extensible wine cellar that puts function over beauty, then Storvino is a great option. Wine Cellar Floors The cellar floor should accomplish three things: insulate, retain humidity and protect falling bottles. No matter what the surface of the cellar is, it should be coated with a non-porous sealer. When designing a wine cellar in a basement, I use three coats of epoxy sealer over the cement floor. Use the kind designed for garage floors: it will last a lifetime. I then lay down rubber mats, the kind used in restaurant kitchens. Let’s be honest: you are as much of a clumsy drunk as I am. You are going to drop a few bottles. Wine Cellar Walls and Vapor Barriers The walls are built like any other interior partition. Built with 2X4 lumber and are faced with 1/2″ gypsum board on each side. These are 4 1/2 inch deep walls. You have to make a few adjustments. Insulation is essential. R-15 fiberglass insulation is best, as it will also absorb most vibration. Before you hang the interior gypsum board, line the lumber with 6 mils plastic sheeting. This is your vapor barrier, which is critical to the success of a wine cellar. It retains the humidity in the cellar, prevents the insulation from rotting, and helps keep the wine cellar pressurized. Along with the walls, it’s a good idea also to do the same for the ceiling. Another smart upgrade is to use a green board in the interior. It’s designed for wet spaces. I also use a vapor barrier primer in the interior; Benjamin Moore has a perfect latex-based one. The Wine School’s Cellars Through The Ages The Italian section of the Wine School Cellar in 2021 Our current wine cellar is a series of narrow pathways with floor-to-ceiling wine. Motions sensors turn on LED lights as you move through the facility. Its industrial look wasn’t intentional; it’s the byproduct of being a highly efficient wine storage space. Our Upgraded Wine Cellar, circa 2007. .wp-duotone-filter-61203492165f2 img { filter: url( #wp-duotone-filter-61203492165f2 ); } Our second wine cellar was a traditional affair. We ordered our wine racks through a specialty wine company. I loved the design: the narrow spacing of the racks was very efficient and easily organized. However, the wood racks posed a problem. After eight years, the racks started to show cracks near the joints. The BEAST: Our very first wine cellar, circa 2002. Ugly AF, but IT WORKED .wp-duotone-filter-612034921666b img { filter: url( #wp-duotone-filter-612034921666b ); } Our very first wine cellar was the ugliest thing you have ever seen. This is the only photo in existence. This was built back in 2002 when the school was very young and had no funds to build a wine cellar. The room was built using leftover lumber from a nearby construction site, and the wine racks were from IKEA. While ugly, it held temperature very well and taught two valuable lessons: wine cellars should be efficient and unassuming. Tasting Classes Wine Tasting Cheese Pairing Cocktails Food Pairing Wine Tasting Articles Seven Types of Corkscrews Build a Wine Cellar Know Your Wine Bottle Wine Glass Recommendations Wine Tasting 101 Wine Reviews: The Essential Guide Buying Wine Online Best Wine Shops in Philly - https://j.mp/3BskLvo

0 notes

wineschool-blog · 3 years ago

Text

Cellaring Wine

https://j.mp/3BskLvo Let’s start with a basic idea: what is a wine cellar? It’s a room designed to store wine over a very long period of time. That’s all the room does. You shove a bottle into the room, and ten years later, you have a reasonable chance the wine will still be good. It isn’t a place to entertain friends or even taste wine. It’s a one-function room. If you want a room to celebrate your love of wine, you need a wine-themed playground for adults. That’s really cool, but it’s not a cellar. The room has to control four variables that can affect the longevity of a bottle of wine: temperaturevibrationlighthumidity The first three are forms of energy that can negatively impact your wine storage. The final variable affects the wine’s cork and label. A well-built cellar will address all four issues. Table of contentsCeller EssentialsHumidityVibrationLightDo You Really Need a Wine Cellar?Wine Cellar in a ClosetWine Cellar IdeasWine Cellar on the CheapWine Cellar DIYWine Cellar DesignPlansDoors Cooling UnitsThe Classic Wine Cooling UnitMy Recommended Wine Cooling UnitMake it EfficientThe Cheap Way to Keep Your Wine CoolWine Cellar RacksStorvinoWine Cellar FloorsWine Cellar Walls and Vapor BarriersThe Wine School’s Cellars Through The Ages Celler Essentials Temperature is the most critical aspect of wine storage. It is also the easiest to accomplish. For long-term storage, temperatures need to be kept between 54 and 59 degrees Fahrenheit, with no more than a 2 percent variation in a 24 hour period. If you plan on storing wine for no more than three years, then a temperature below 75 degrees is fine. Humidity Humidity is harder to regulate, as it varies both regionally and seasonally. The ideal humidity level is 70%, but a range of 50-75% is fine. Under 50% and corks start to dry out within four years, and over 75% and mold become a major issue on wine labels. Vibration An oftentimes ignored problem that can really harm wine over time. A vibration is a form of energy that easily passes through wine. It can come from a heavily trafficked hallway or even trucks passing on a nearby road. The vibration needs to be canceled out. Light Sunlight and much artificial light throw off two things that can destroy wine: heat and ultraviolet radiation. Lighting sources have to be designed in a way that minimizes impact. LED lights are the only way to go. I recommend using motion-activated lights. Do You Really Need a Wine Cellar? If you aren’t planning to lay down the wine for a long time, don’t worry about building a wine cellar. As long as you aren’t abusing your wine, your wine will keep for a few years without being cellared. You don’t even have to store your wine on its side: the cork won’t start drying out for a few years, anyways. Wine Cellar in a Closet If you want to keep wine for a few years, empty a closet and store your cases of wine there. It’s not sexy, but it’s cheap and does the trick. Your main goal is to keep your wines from getting too hot. The magic number for short-term wine storage is 75 degrees. Over that temperature, you’ll see faster degradation of the wine. A wine that would last ten years won’t last one. Over 80 degrees and the wine will need to be consumed within the week. Over 90 degrees, and you might as well start googling for a good sangria recipe. Pretty Isn’t The Best Way to Store Wine Wine Cellar Ideas Building a wine cellar doesn’t have to be expensive. The original Wine School cellar was in the basement of my apartment building. We didn’t keep wines around longer than a few months, so being stored at 70 degrees didn’t matter. After all, that’s pretty much the temperature it’s stored in at a wine shop. When the school moved to Fairmount Avenue, we needed a larger cellar. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much money, so I built the cellar material liberated from a nearby construction site. It was the craziest looking wine cellar in history, but it did the job. By the time we moved to Rittenhouse, I had developed a 4000 bottle storage facility that didn’t break the bank. Since then, I’ve built three more wine cellars and consulted on dozens more. Wine Cellar on the Cheap The first rule of cheap wine storage is to stop googling pictures of wine cellars. It will just make you upset, so stop! You won’t be ordering custom hardwood wine racks. Mongolian monks won’t carve your cellar door from a millennia-old Cyprus tree. Nope. Home Depot and Amazon Prime are your new best friends. Your new cellar will not earn a spot in Architectural Digest (although one of my student’s wine cellars did end up being featured in the Wine Spectator). Nope. Your room is going to resemble a janitorial closet at the local high school. And that’s a very, very good thing. Wine Cellar DIY Building a new room is often the best option, although retrofitting an existing room is possible. The most cost-effective way of building a wine cellar is doing it yourself. If you can hang drywall, you can build a wine storage room. If not, you’ll have to hire a contractor. The trick is not to tell them that it’s going to be a wine cellar. If you do, the price will go up. Not because it takes specialized skills, but because they’ll assume you are filthy rich. Hire the contractor for the hard stuff, and finish off the easy stuff –like painting — yourself. The best time to bring in a contractor is when you need other work done to get the best price. They will give you a much better price if there are several jobs to do. If you are re-doing your kitchen, they may even throw in the weird little room you want to be built in the basement for free. Beautiful Isn’t Always Better. Wine Cellar Design How big a cellar do you need? You can hold 1,200 bottles in a 5ft (W) X 10ft (L) x 7 ft (H) wine cellar, which is about 350 cubic square feet of interior. Of course, the smaller the footprint, the more efficient the cellar will be! Plans Smaller is always better. You want a cellar with minimal open space: floor-to-ceiling wine storage and a narrow walkway. Designing wine storage is all about the cubic feet of space you’ll have to keep cool. Space is surprisingly difficult to regulate. An empty cellar –even a perfectly built one– will jump up 3 degrees in temperature as soon as someone walks in and will continue to rise. If a quarter of the space in the cellar is full of wine, the increase is negligible –about .05 degrees in five minutes. Fluid is a great insulator, so it’s important to keep the cellar filled. When you start planning your cellar, have a reasonable idea of how many bottles you will want to store. Build your cellar plan around that number. Doors The place to start designing a wine cellar is with the door. Unfortunately, it’s the weakest link in the cellar. Most people install a fancy wood or glass door. They look amazing, but they are terrible ideas for a functional wine cellar. You need two things in a wine cellar door: insulation and security. That is why I use prehung steel doors for my wine cellars. These are the type of doors a contractor would use when installing a front door on a house. You can pick one up for a few hundred dollars at your local Home Depot. Cooling Units This is the tough part. Cooling units are expensive, and they will be the one thing that will fail. The Classic Wine Cooling Unit The very best way is to vent cold air into the wine cellar via ductwork. Unfortunately, systems like this are expensive. Most sommeliers claim the gold standard system is the WhisperKOOL Extreme 5000tiR. However, with installation, this can cost upwards of $7K. My Recommended Wine Cooling Unit My preferred unit is the CellarPro 4200VSi with a VC Duct Kit upgrade. I install the entire unit inside the wine cellar, hanging from the ceiling, with ductwork through the wall in two places. The first pulls filtered air from just outside the wine cellar. I run the other ductwork as far away as possible –another room or even outside– to exhaust the hot air. This system costs about $4k installed and is far superior to the WhisperKool. Make it Efficient Always buy a unit larger than you need by at least 20% no matter what you do. This will increase efficiency, lowering the long-term costs of storing wine. The Cheap Way to Keep Your Wine Cool If you want to go the cheap route, you can use a through-the-wall air conditioner. You’ll need a powerful model (over 15,000 BTU) with a remote thermostat. I built it for a friend; I used the Frigidaire FRA156MT1, which cost around $600. Install the AC unit at 4 feet above the floor and vented into a room that is at least 3X the size of the wine cellar. Here’s how to make sure it will keep your cellar at 55 degrees: place the remote outside the wine cellar. Since the remote will always show a higher temperature, the AC will continue to cycle. There is always a chance of losing humidity. Because of that, it’s important to install a humidity sensor, or at least leave a bucket of water in the cellar. Wine Cellar Racks This is where my no-nonsense approach to wine cellars really changes how you design a wine cellar. I do not use traditional wine racks. The ones you buy on Amazon or at Ikea will most likely be made of pine, which will start to rot in the humid environment of the wine cellar. These are the type of wine racks to avoid. Wood wine racks must be built out of mahogany or redwood, and that is an expensive proposition. Over time, they will start to rot. However, that may take over a decade. Storvino My preferred storage is using storvino, which is an extensible system of plastic extruded wine racks. They are efficient, easy to assemble, and easy to reconfigure. I think of them as LEGOS for winos. They are also great to transport wine with: when you attend a wine class, you should notice the black boxes we carry wine in: those are storvino racks. For a 1,200 bottle cellar, you can expect to spend about $4K for your storvino shelving if you purchase them online. That is a lot of cash, but let’s put that into perspective: retail redwood shelving will cost about the same. However, to be as efficient space-wise as storvino, you would have to purchase custom-sized shelving, which will cost upwards of $5K for a 1200 bottle shelving. Bottom line: If you want an extensible wine cellar that puts function over beauty, then Storvino is a great option. Wine Cellar Floors The cellar floor should accomplish three things: insulate, retain humidity and protect falling bottles. No matter what the surface of the cellar is, it should be coated with a non-porous sealer. When designing a wine cellar in a basement, I use three coats of epoxy sealer over the cement floor. Use the kind designed for garage floors: it will last a lifetime. I then lay down rubber mats, the kind used in restaurant kitchens. Let’s be honest: you are as much of a clumsy drunk as I am. You are going to drop a few bottles. Wine Cellar Walls and Vapor Barriers The walls are built like any other interior partition. Built with 2X4 lumber and are faced with 1/2″ gypsum board on each side. These are 4 1/2 inch deep walls. You have to make a few adjustments. Insulation is essential. R-15 fiberglass insulation is best, as it will also absorb most vibration. Before you hang the interior gypsum board, line the lumber with 6 mils plastic sheeting. This is your vapor barrier, which is critical to the success of a wine cellar. It retains the humidity in the cellar, prevents the insulation from rotting, and helps keep the wine cellar pressurized. Along with the walls, it’s a good idea also to do the same for the ceiling. Another smart upgrade is to use a green board in the interior. It’s designed for wet spaces. I also use a vapor barrier primer in the interior; Benjamin Moore has a perfect latex-based one. The Wine School’s Cellars Through The Ages The Italian section of the Wine School Cellar in 2021 Our current wine cellar is a series of narrow pathways with floor-to-ceiling wine. Motions sensors turn on LED lights as you move through the facility. Its industrial look wasn’t intentional; it’s the byproduct of being a highly efficient wine storage space. Our Upgraded Wine Cellar, circa 2007. .wp-duotone-filter-612017f4c3663 img { filter: url( #wp-duotone-filter-612017f4c3663 ); } Our second wine cellar was a traditional affair. We ordered our wine racks through a specialty wine company. I loved the design: the narrow spacing of the racks was very efficient and easily organized. However, the wood racks posed a problem. After eight years, the racks started to show cracks near the joints. The BEAST: Our very first wine cellar, circa 2002. Ugly AF, but IT WORKED .wp-duotone-filter-612017f4c36ec img { filter: url( #wp-duotone-filter-612017f4c36ec ); } Our very first wine cellar was the ugliest thing you have ever seen. This is the only photo in existence. This was built back in 2002 when the school was very young and had no funds to build a wine cellar. The room was built using leftover lumber from a nearby construction site, and the wine racks were from IKEA. While ugly, it held temperature very well and taught two valuable lessons: wine cellars should be efficient and unassuming. 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