TANKING THE CELLAR

TANKING THE CELLAR: Just about every serious or dedicated wine drinker dreams of having a cellar in which to stash their treasures, whilst they slowly mature from being great, young wines into stunningly awesome, mature wines. The probability of this transformation happening has increased dramatically since the Australian wine industry (except for a few dinosaurs) changed over from using bits of tree bark (cork) to screwcaps. No more opening 15-25 year old wines to find that despite all your TLC (tender loving care), they have been buggered up by a lump of tree bark (cork).

Anyhow, the real issue now is how does one create a wine cellar? Very few people are able to buy a home with an existing cellar, so one has to look for an alternative. The simplest and most basic is to buy some postal foam boxes from Australia Post – bung the bottles in there –remembering to place a note on the outside describing the contents and then tuck the box under the bed or in a cupboard. There is a limit though, to how many boxes you can squirrel away around the house before people start tripping over them. Also, this is only a temporary fix rather than a solution, as the boxes still heat up when the house does –just at a slower pace. So it's really only a stop-gap measure while you save up for a real cellar.

The next step is those vino-thingamajigs – you know, the fridges that aren’t really a fridge and store anywhere from 20 to 120 bottles at some ideal temperature. A big step up but still not an ideal solution, as any serious wine collector needs to have a bloody-lot-more wine than say, 120 bottles.

The real solution, other than demolishing the house sans cellar and building a new one mit cellar, is to consider “Tanking the Cellar”. Today there is a mob called Versatile Tanks that make concrete tanks in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Along the way they have set up a cellar 'division', that specialises in the design and installation of centre tank wine cellars, for a fraction of the cost of building a new basement cellar.

Tell most people that you are going to build a cellar and they will automatically presume that it will be dug out directly under your house. This doesn’t need to be the case. In most instances this is either very difficult and or bloody costly. So what Versatile Tanks do is to help you to work out what is the best solution for you. It may well be completely underground, or it could be built into the side of the hill, or completely above ground, all depending on your actual site. You can literally place the tank anywhere you like (and are allowed by council) on your property. Not only that, but the tank can be sized-to-measure so that it fits exactly where and how you want it to. Unlike when creating a 'conventional' cellar under the house, where the size and location will be governed by footings, load-bearing beams, etc.

So this way you choose the location, the size, the entry point and the internal fit out. With regards to the internal fit out, Versatile Tanks can supply the cellar at the stage you want, anywhere from 'all ready to fill' with precious wines, down to a 'bare installed tank' with a door opening so that you can deck it out as you like in your own time.

An added advantage of a wine tank cellar is that as the floor and walls are poured in one operation, there are no seams that could leak, which in turn means a lower risk of dampness and mould. Mould can play havoc with the labels on wine bottles, turning them into an unreadable, fuzzy, white mess and forcing one to play “Russian Roulette” with one’s vinous treasures.

Imagine if you had a cellar, enjoying bottles of a stunning mature wine, carefully aged in your cellar, from say the vintage in which your child/children were born, for their 21st, 25th or even 30th birthdays, or even from your wedding year. For our 30th wedding anniversary my wife and I, along with some friends, will be enjoying 30-year-old reds, including Irvine Grand Merlot and Penfolds Grange which have been gently maturing in our cellar. More than that, a cellar allows you to enjoy wines at all different stages of its development, rather than just as pimply, aggressive youngsters, if you don’t have a cellar. Just as an example of the benefits, almost every Australian sparkling wine will benefit immensely from 1-3 years in the cellar. During that time they soften off in acidity and develop some lovely, complex flavours making them taste fantastic and like a sparkling wine that costs 2-3 times what they did.

So if you are thinking about contemplating the possibility of creating a “proper” cellar, I would strongly suggest that you talk to Versatile Tanks who can be contacted on https://www.versatiletanks.com.au/wine-cellars/ and you could end up “tanking the cellar”, thus enjoying stunning aged wines in years to come and thanking the cellar. Cheers!