Build Your Own Wine Cellar
To experience a variety of wines at a reasonable cost, the Brew Cellar recommends that you build your own wine cellar that will be the envy of your neighbours. All you need to do is calculate how much wine you'll need, what kinds of wine you would like to brew and set yourself a schedule.
- Begin by determining how much wine you consume annually. Include your daily glasses with dinner, weekend dinner parties, friends dropping by, birthdays, anniversaries, holiday weekends and gift giving. Don't forget to split your preferences for red and white and include pink and dessert for special occassions.
- Multiply your weekly consumption by 52 and then add 15-20% for unexpected wine emergencies. If you figure you need around 180 bottles in total, that works out to six 23-L batches per year.
- We recommend that you make twice your yearly expected consumption, in as short a period as possible, ideally all within one or two months. This is 12 batches, all in one fell swoop.
- Put half of the wine away in your cellar, or store it at the Brew Cellar. If you make two carboy's (the large jugs prior to bottling) of one batch, bottle one, and we'll store the second one until you're ready to bottle it.
- At the end of one year start opening those fully aged bottles, and enjoy the tremendous improvement that good cellaring can bring.
If making 12 batches of wine at once is problematic for you, another option is to make two batches everytime you make one. Bottle one for your use, and put the other in your personal cellar, or store it with us. Most people think they need to drink an entire batch before they start another but by brewing wine every two months, you'll always have a variety of wine on hand for parties and gift giving.
Another good way to build your own wine cellar is to brew wine with friends. Get 6 friends together and receive a group discount. If each friend brews a different wine, then you each take home 5 bottles of six different wines.
