Wine Cellar Temp

[Chuck Rairdan]

I live in the "old world" and my cellar goes through natural temp fluctuation from about 10°C to 18°C, with a few short term spikes from time to time. But to me that is normal.



Brave? Interesting perspective. From the current market driven world, where consistency is more important that uniqueness, I guess that is brave.

Today.

But there was a time each vintage was a vintage because it was unique. And it was special. That was kind of the implied point and definition of "vintage" after all, versus a consistent wine from year to year. Making a vintage wine can be difficult. After all, one year may make a lousy wine, and sales can suffer. But not making a vintage wine means one may loose the delight when a wine will shine in a stellar year.

Oh, how the world has and is changing. Quarterly corporate results more important than long term quality.

Personally, I prefer each yearly wine as a vintage, even it fails, versus hedging one's bets and going for the consistent mediocre year and year out, year after year.

Yup, by brave I was referring to the market driven commercial wine world which as we know is a significantly different approach than home wine making. In this case, I was talking with the wine maker about the relative stability of the yeast colonies and that it wouldn't likely change much from year to year and their primary fermentation stalls each year with the onset of cooler temps to then start again in the spring. I think I detected some volatile acids in the reds I sampled but it wasn't off putting and the wines overall were vibrant and complex. I went to this winery specifically for their innovative approach as a regional winery and was glad I did. I have a lot of respect for their creative courage and they appear to have a solid following, so not as dependent on the open market constraints (I know, that's an oxymoron )

 

[Chuck Rairdan]

Yup, by brave I was referring to the market driven commercial wine world which as we know is a significantly different approach than home wine making. In this case, I was talking with the wine maker about the relative stability of the yeast colonies and that it wouldn't likely change much from year to year and their primary fermentation stalls each year with the onset of cooler temps to then start again in the spring. I think I detected some volatile acids in the reds I sampled but it wasn't off putting and the wines overall were vibrant and complex. I went to this winery specifically for their innovative approach as a regional winery and was glad I did. I have a lot of respect for their creative courage and they appear to have a solid following, so not as dependent on the open market constraints (I know, that's an oxymoron )

Btw, here's an image of my wine label, which is homage to the old world. Cheers!

 

[ibglowin]

I just installed a Wifi enabled Temp/Hygrometer Gauge from GoVee. Purchased from Amazon of course.


Had an ah ha moment when we were out in SoCal last week. The county here in Los is in the process of installing smart devices on everything (water, gas, electric meter). Sure enough they came while we were away to install either gas or electric and I was afraid if they shut off the power my Cellar AC may not automatically power back on and I had no way of monitoring the cellar from afar. This will do just the trick. So far so good. $35 is not much for peace of mind during the cellar cooling season. I can pop in and check the temps anytime I want to from anywhere. The app was a not the most intuitive app but we got it hooked up in short order. You need to hook up first via BT and then you can hook up to WiFi. You get both temp and humidity in one shot and you can even view a graph of the changes over the day or week or month. Multiple set points for recording temp/humidity from every 10 mins to every hour. Cheap insurance in my opinion for when your out of town.

 

[Chuck Rairdan]

I just installed a Wifi enabled Temp/Hygrometer Gauge from GoVee. Purchased from Amazon of course.

View attachment 74733
Had an ah ha moment when we were out in SoCal last week. The county here in Los is in the process of installing smart devices on everything (water, gas, electric meter). Sure enough they came while we were away to install either gas or electric and I was afraid if they shut off the power my Cellar AC may not automatically power back on and I had no way of monitoring the cellar from afar. This will do just the trick. So far so good. $35 is not much for peace of mind during the cellar cooling season. I can pop in and check the temps anytime I want to from anywhere. The app was a not the most intuitive app but we got it hooked up in short order. You need to hook up first via BT and then you can hook up to WiFi. You get both temp and humidity in one shot and you can even view a graph of the changes over the day or week or month. Multiple set points for recording temp/humidity from every 10 mins to every hour. Cheap insurance in my opinion for when your out of town.

Have this same unit arriving tomorrow and traveling next week. Agreed, cheap insurance with summer on the way and I only put so much faith in PG&E. Incidentally, we had solar installed recently, so this will add another safeguard and layer of continuity.