Designing a wine room for your home can be the perfect way to enjoy your favorite bouquet at the end of a long day or share your favorite reserve with friends. Because everyone has varied tastes in both wine and design, here are seven different ways to incorporate a wine room into your home.
1. Wine Bar
Unsuspecting guests think this bookshelf is only for books.
This bookshelf leads to something much more exciting.
For the wine connoisseur that enjoys the atmosphere of an intimate bar setting, you may consider creating an in-home wine bar. You can display your favorite bottles on the back bar and have every glass or decanter you might need to serve up your favorite reds and whites.
With a bookcase to display your World Atlas of Wine and Great Domaines of Burgundy, you can create a hidden door to your best bottles in your attached hidden wine cellar.
2. Cellar
If you have a small basement or a closet under a set of stairs, this might be the perfect spot for a proper wine cellar. With temperature controlled refrigeration and scalloped, column, or diamond cube storage, you can find a variety of ways to get the look and feel you want. An excellent wine cellar often has brick, stone, and aged woodworking details for wall and flooring materials.
3. French Country
If you have built a small collection of village wines from an inspired trip to Burgundy, you may consider bringing a little of the French style into your wine storage. With limestone colored stonework, aged wood details, and a touch of wrought iron, you might just find the right style for your design. For more authentic details, use tumbled stone in uneven shapes and sizes; the variation in texture and dimension will bring a truly French feel to the space. This and other French door styles may be the perfect way to bring a bit of French feel into your wine storage.
As Loren Sonkin stated in a recent article, “…when Burgundy is good, it can be ethereal. It can provide those wine drinking experiences that few places on Earth can.”
4. Wine Nook
Many people have added reading nooks to their home — a relaxing spot hidden away from commotion where one can relax and escape with a story. If you are more of a wine person (or just enjoy pairing a good book with a glass of wine), consider creating a wine nook within your home. It can have a relaxing place to sit, a small sideboard for your wine bottles and glasses, and (of course) a place to put your feet up at the end of your day.
5. Italian Grotto
The Wine Folly website states, “If you tasted a new Italian wine each week, it would take you 20 years to taste your way through Italy.” If Italy is where you found your love of wine, then it might be more fitting to style your home cellar after an Italian grotto design. With stucco-covered bricks, well-trodden stone flooring, and walls stacked with several Chianti, Moscato, and possibly a Montepulciano or two, it will be the perfect spot to uncork a bottle. For wooden features, consider heavily timbered architectural details and furnishings.
6. Modern
If you are looking to create a modern take on the wine cellar, there are many ways you can design your space. With sleek finishes and clean lines, you can rid your decor of ornamentation and celebrate the form and function of a wine cellar. You might find stainless steel, concrete, glass, or exotic wood to be materials and inspirations for your modern wine storage. The great thing about going modern with your space is the various innovations available for wine display. You can play with acrylic, glass, or metal for holding your wine collection and forgo the traditional wood storage. You may even create for your home something that resembles a wine vault rather than a wine cellar.
7. Speakeasy
There was nothing like the camaraderie and secrecy of enjoying a few spirits with like-minded souls in a speakeasy during Prohibition. With hidden doors, secret knocks, and passwords, it was the place to loosen your tie and relax while enjoying jazz music and dancing. While most people think of liquor when it comes to a speakeasy, wine was very much in production during the 1920s. Many wine producers stocked up before the Volstead Act came into effect, and it has been reported that after the act had passed, producers sold 141 million bottles of wine within a three-month period. If you want to create that same ambiance within your home, consider a wooden bar with classic brass details, jazz age styling, and a hidden compartment or doorway. Hang a few Stetson fedoras or cloche hats on a rack and you’ll have a space that Ernest Hemingway would love.