After building a beautiful wine cellar for your precious wine collection, you don’t want to just have an ordinary entrance to it! The wine cellar door is a very important aspect of a wine storage room and comes in many styles. It is made not just to set the mood of your interior design, but also to seal in the ideal climate conditions in a wine cellar which include keeping the right balance of light, temperature and humidity in a wine room needed for wine to mature properly.
All wine cellar doors have certain qualifications that meet the demands for maintaining ideal climate conditions. To increase your wine cellar’s aesthetic value, choose a door that’s stunning, has great features and benefits and will make you feel like a celebrity while you enter your wine cellar!
Understanding Cellar Door Properties
Your cellar entrance should be an exterior grade door which is very sturdy, able to withstand constant change in temperature and keep outside air from leaking in. It should be durable and insulated to avoid warping. All doors should come with automatic bottoms or combination of door sweep and threshold (to avoid cool air from escaping), and perimeter seal. These allow openings to be sealed protecting the wines from spoiling due to air leaks. In the case of glass doors, they should have dual-paned, tempered and thermal glass.
Custom wood cellar doors should go through a special process designed to strengthen its insulating properties. A new technology, which only a few manufacturers offer, makes use of the Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL). LVL is a type of engineered wood (made from small diameter trees) where multiple layers of thin wood are bonded together with the use of adhesives. This technology is better compared to traditional technology because of its essential features such as durability, uniformity, and ability to resist warping and shrinkage due to changing climate conditions.
Another technique called Mortise and Tenon has been widely used by woodworkers for thousands of years because of its simplicity and effectiveness. It involves the joining of pieces of wood. It comprises two components which are the mortise hole (the cavity) and the tenon (the projection). The joint may be glued, pinned or wedged to lock it in place. Combining this process with LVL will give wood cellar doors ultimate strength.
The cellar door helps maintain the balance of temperature and humidity in a wine cellar by sealing in the air. Regulated temperature slows down the wine’s aging process resulting in great flavors, colors and aromas. Maintained humidity level keeps the cork’s moisture, thus preventing wine damage due to oxidation. If you don’t have the proper door, there will be wine spoilage or damage, which of course you don’t want to happen.
Materials and Styles for Stunning Wine Cellar Doors
Cellar doors can be made of wood, glass or wrought iron. There are many customization options which include:
* standard doors
* carved wood doors
* combination of carved wood and etched glass
* wrought iron grills attached to a wood door frame with bevelled glass
Wooden Cellar doors can be plain or carved. Hand carved cellar doors are commonly chosen by wine enthusiasts because they make lasting first impressions and set your door apart from the ordinary. Free your imagination, have a specific idea or theme in mind and incorporate it in your door carvings. The theme could be grapevines, leaves, scenes related to wine industry or any theme you would like to be displayed in your custom entry door.
With skilled artisans, wrought iron can have a variety of uses in creating artful pieces. Its strength, resistance to corrosion and beauty are the reasons why it has been an important part of architecture for centuries. You can go for an old world look with an ornamental wrought iron cellar door. Wrought iron grills with hand forged realistic details attached to a wood door frame are really decorative and luxurious. It can be designed to best fit your desired configuration and can even be painted to match your decor. Just like hand carved wooden doors, you can choose a theme or motif for this type of door. It comes with glass panes which are removable for cleaning purposes.
Another attractive cellar door option is the glass door. It can be plain, etched or stained. Glass etching is the roughening of a piece of glass in selected areas to create a permanent design on it, thus creating an elegant look. Doors with stained glass are also attractive and can blend with any existing decor you have. Insulated glass compared to regular glass is ideal for doors because of its improved binding capacity and ability to control climate in a cellar.
Wine cellar doors are as significant as your wines. Without them properly installed, you’ll not achieve the satisfaction and enjoyment of your wine collection in the end. Customized door options have endless possibilities with the use of expertly crafted wood, glass or wrought iron. Make sure that you choose the right material and incorporate unusual and attractive designs to have a perfect entrance to your wine room!