How to build a wine cellar

Cheaper wines should be drunk within the year, but go up a notch or two in price and you can buy wines for your 'cellar'. You'll need a dark, damp space, whether that be a bathroom or a relative's spare room, writes JOHN WILSON

WE HAVE THIS Downton Abbey image of a wine cellar as an underground vault, neatly stacked with bottles of expensive claret. This may once have been the norm for a small elite, but it is relatively easy for all of us to build up our own personal collection of wine. It can be great fun and very rewarding in the medium term.

It doesn’t have to cost a fortune either. With a little bit of planning, it should be possible for most to create a modest little cellar for ageing our favourite wines.

The vast majority of wine is ready to drink the day you buy it, and won’t get any better. Most inexpensive white wines will lose freshness and fruit after 12 months, and most reds will keep but not get any better over the same period. With these wines, the pleasure lies in their fresh, youthful fruity flavours.

If you move up a notch or two in price, a great many wines will improve significantly.

We often read about ancient bottles that reach incredibly high prices at auction. Buying wine for profit is an entirely different thing: often risky and always expensive. Investment wines are nearly always pricey from the start.

But if you have the space, it can be fun to stash away a few bottles of mid-priced wine every now and again, and forget about them for a year or two. Provided the wines are good enough, you will be in for a pleasant surprise.

Older wines have an extra dimension. They are more complex, developing a multitude of new flavours. Previously tough reds will be smoother, almost silky at times; hitherto unremarkable acidic whites will soften and bloom.

Modern housing does not lend itself easily to cellaring wine. The biggest problem is finding a space that is both large enough and suitable for keeping wine. A wine prefers somewhere dark, cool and damp.

The biggest enemy is heat. The warmer the temperature, the quicker the wine will mature. The ideal is around 10 degrees, although anything from 7-18 degrees will do.

Big fluctuations in temperature can be disastrous; steer clear of boilers, other heaters and attics. The cork will shrink and begin to leak. In very dry conditions, the same may happen. Strong light can also damage wine (hence the green or brown glass).

Serious collectors rent space in air-conditioned warehouses, or build their own insulated cellars. This is not practical for most of us.

There are also various temperature-controlled storage units available, which can fit up to 300 bottles. These are not cheap (expect to pay €1,000 upwards) but do provide reassurance. Contact John Taylor at Febvre (jtaylor@febvre.ie or 01-2161400) for details. But most people seem to be able to find a small space under the stairs, in a coal-cellar, an unused fireplace or in any unheated spare rooms.

I keep part of my collection in my mother’s house (she doesn’t drink wine, and is part of the generation with modest heating requirements). It also means I won’t open my best bottle late at night on a whim, after a few glasses.

The remainder is in my house in an unheated, north-facing bathroom. If your cellar is damp, and damp is good, it is worth spraying the labels with hairspray or covering with clingfilm to prevent disintegration. Try to organise your collection; wading through a huge pile of bottles every time you want to find a particular wine can be frustrating.

It is also a good idea to keep a record of what you have, where you bought it and how much it cost, and also maybe a note on how it tasted and who you shared it with. An Excel file is the modern alternative to a cellar book.

We will return to this subject on June 9th, when we will look at what to buy, but in the meantime, here are four wines to squirrel away for a few years.

Hochheimer Stielweg Riesling Alte Reben Trocken 2010, Rheingau Weingut Künstler, 12.5%, €28Good quality Riesling ages wonderfully. Personal favourites include the Clare Valley in Australia, Alsace, Germany and Austria at four to 10 years old. The year 2010 was a fine vintage in all four regions, with good mineral acidity that should enable the wines to mature gracefully. The Stielweg 2010 is very drinkable now, with soft quince and peach fruits, and crisp mineral acidity. With time, it will broaden out, and take on richer, softer flavours. I would keep it for three to five years, more if you have the patience. Stockists: On the Grapevine, Dalkey, onthegrapevine.ie; Cabot and Co, Westport, cabotandco.com

Shaw and Smith M3 Chardonnay 2010, Adelaide Hills, Australia, 13%, €31.99A very young, high-quality Chardonnay. The tight, focused, concentrated green fruits and crisp acidity are currently masked by new oak, but with time this should even out leaving a wine that compares favourably with the far more expensive white wines of Burgundy. Stockists: Redmonds of Ranelagh, Dublin; The Corkscrew, Chatham Street, Dublin; Mitchells, CHQ and Glasthule, Dublin; 64 Wine, Glasthule; Jus de Vine, Portmarnock; On the Grapevine, Dalkey; Harvey Nichols, Dundrum; Sweeneys, Glasnevin; The Wine Boutique, Ringsend; Fallon Byrne; Exchequer Street, Dublin; thewineshop.ie

Saint Joseph Grand Duc 2010, Domaine du Monteillet, 13%, €23.50The year 2010 has all the signs of being a great vintage in the Rhône valley, both north and south. In the north, Côte-Rôtie and Hermitage are great but pricey; Crozes-Hermitage, St Joseph and Cornas are more affordable. I tasted this a few months back alongside some excellent older vintages from the same producer, and I reckon it will develop very nicely over two to five years. Discreet, finely tuned wine with dark savoury fruits that sit perfectly on the palate. Stockists: thewinestore.ie; Donnybrook Fair, Dublin 4; Jus de Vine, Portmarnock

Chianti Classico 2008, Fontodi, 14%, €24.99The year 2008 will go down as a very good rather than great vintage in Tuscany but, as always, the better producers made wines worth buying in. I tasted the Fontodi Chianti Classico earlier this year and marked it down as one to lay down for a year or two. Stockists: 64 Wine, Glasthule; Unwined, Swords; Drink Store, Dublin 7; Fallon Byrne, Exchequer Street, Dublin; The Vineyard, Galway; Harvey Nichols, Dundrum; Wicklow Wine Company; thewineshop.ie

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TERROIRS TASTING

Terroirs wine shop in Donnybrook is hosting a tasting next Saturday, May 26th (5-7pm) with Donal O'Dwyer from O'Dwyer Wines in Clare Valley.

Donal is originally from Co Tipperary