Unless you have access to a real cave to keep your wine collection cool, it is best to talk to a cellar expert upfront – it might save you some money and pain later on.ĮuroCave works with home owners, architects and builders on a daily basis. Achieving 14☌ is never as easy as people think. Without these you will achieve very little – the end result will just be a partly underground “hot box” storage area, something that we see far too often. ![]() PLEASE consider insulation and installing a cellar conditioner in the planning stages of your cellar. Trying to retro fit insulation and a cellar conditioner such as the EuroCave equivalent after building your cellar can be a messy and costly process. Wine requires a constant temperature of 14☌ to mature as the wine maker intended. Add to this, the increasingly warm Summers that Australia is experiencing and it is not difficult to understand why we receive many calls at this time of the year from concerned wine lovers whose cellars are simply not keeping to correct temperature. Even worse, these spaces generally open into basement car parks and garages so the warm air comes straight in through the surrounding walls, or are largely underground except for a concrete slab above which poses the same issues. Many of the “underground” cellars we see designed in Australia are often protected not by earth, but by concrete which is a very poor insulator. Interestingly, 2 metres of earth is equivalent to 5cm of modern insulation product. True underground cellars have metres of earth protecting them around the perimeter, and most importantly ABOVE the cellar to keep the space cool. It is commonly known that earth or soil is a great insulator so doesn’t it make sense that positioning your cellar underground will be sufficient to provide your wine with a cool, temperature controlled environment? Well yes and no. Even better if it’s got a secret door hey? Many of us romanticise this idea based on our fond memories of grandparents with old cellars where you would walk into this naturally cool space year round (perhaps even with some cured meats maturing), or the “caves” in Champagne, Burgundy and other wine regions in Europe. I am not in a rush as I have a case from another retailer shipping this week.There is no doubt that we’d all love a truly subterranean cellar to hide away and enjoy our wines and watch them mature gracefully. Now to just get a wine or two to flip from 3rd party to Cloudcellar so I can request my case. Stacking that with the $26 coupon really stretch my short "investment" of $150. I am kicking myself now for not jumping on more gift cards during that sale. I wait for high index valued deals and then also try to couple that with a coupon. To me this is all a waiting game to help expand my collection and to try new wines. ![]() Looking locally I wouldn't be able to get some of the vineyards that Underground Cellar provide access. Also as I stated above to make a case I would have to go to multiple retailers. $23.66 per bottle is not a bad price to pay for a decent wine and I think most of these wines would fall in that category.Īs for the selection I am always looking for new wines to try so I am ok with the randomness and luck of the draw appeal of the site. My first secret deal, Rare Reds featuring Opus One Magnum, cost me $142 (after a coupon code 192 before coupon) and netted me $500 retail, $425 by my searches, between six bottles. ![]() From multiple retailers I think it would have been at least equal or more. If I was impatient and wanted to ship those bottles it would cost me $30. That con of semi artificial value though is a pro for Underground Cellar as for me to source the 6 bottles I initially purchased I would have to do so from multiple vendors. I think they are in the ballpark but there are deals where I have found bottles elsewhere for much lower by using Wine Searcher. I take their retail price with a grain of salt.
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