Where to store wine

[Sammyk]

Living in North Carolina we don't have basements. We do have a large crawl space under the house that has a dirt "floor". There is a door so we have fairly easy access.

We are thinking about putting the carboys there. We plan to "finish" what we have made in carboys. We have 25 1-gallon carboys. I am thinking of large Rubber Maid totes that have a lid to keep the creepy crawlers out in the summer. Do you think this would be a good place?

We have central air but do not use it. I hate air conditioning so it would be too warm in the house to store it for summer months. Right now the carboys are in our shipping room but come January they will have to be moved out of that room.

 

[Rocky]

Sammy, is there any way that you could dig down in the crawl space to aboiut 4 feet down? The temp there should stay at about 50-60 all year and would be ideal. I don't know about protecting the wine from critters and crawlers, but I would try to find some type of sealable container.

BTW, what is a "shipping room?"

 

[Sammyk]

I will talk to him about digging deeper.

We have an internet shipping business and we use one room in our home where we pack and ship our product.

I will put a remote thermometer down there and see how the temperature runs.

 

[fowlmood77]

In upstate SC here and my wine stays in my crawlspace bulk aging and after I bottle it. Right now it is 60 degrees under there and 43 outside. The temps may not be perfect especially in the dead of winter, but there isn't ever a drastic change of temp which I think is more important. If you have a crawlspace wall that is more underground than the others that would be the best place especially if there are no vents there. I dont worry about "critters". They cant get through a cork or airlock.

 

[Sammyk]

fowlmood77 I am about hour from Charlotte so I don't think there is a lot of difference in our temperature.........

We do get mice and rats in the crawl space and I think they would go after the rubber bungs..........Hubby puts down poison bait but more move in with the colder weather.