San Clemente Custom Wine Cellar Project Shows There is More than One Way to “Renovation”
San Clemente is home to California’s famous mountain and ocean views. It attained the grand title of “Spanish Village by the Sea” for a reason, after all. A certain client who recently purchased a home there decided the only way he can appreciate the view outside his new house is if he is doing so with a chilled bottle of wine beside him. He then contacted Iron Wine Cellars to help him fashion the San Clemente custom wine cellar project of his dreams.
There were a few conditions we had to contend with, though. We could not fashion a wine cellar from scratch because there was already an old one existing within the house. However, the state it was left in by the previous owners was so dismal that the client had no choice but to completely renovate it.
Our chief concern when we started the project in February 2015 was to fix the insulation issues plaguing the old cellar. We did so by completely removing all of the old wine racks and the wall coverings behind them. We re-insulated the walls tightly again, but with the express purpose of installing dual pane windows for both the interiors and the cellar door.
The insulation issues were easily sorted, the refrigeration system, on the other hand, was a particularly tricky thing to decide on. Most of the space inside the cellar should be reserved for the 856 wine bottles the client had collected over the course of many, many years. For a system like this, it should be one where it can be self-sustaining. That is why we decided upon using the Wine Guardian Ducted System.
Out of the many cooling systems in our inventory, the Wine Guardian Ducted System works well enough for this purpose since it has an integrated humidification module. That means its humidity and temperature can be easily controlled with a remote, and it also offers less bulk than its larger refrigeration counterparts. For the small space we were working with, this fits in perfectly with the wine racks we were planning to install within the room.
After this, we then came to the point where we had to install the wine racks inside the cellar. The client requested an “antiqued” look for his wine racks, so we decided on using Alder wood for building it. We then capped it off with a glossy chestnut stain and a clear lacquer finish for the whole kit.
The Wine Guardian Thermostat on the right side of the cellar door
The San Clemente custom wine cellar project was started in February of 2015, and we finally completed the entire activity by April. For more custom wine cellar projects like this, check out our complete residential portfolio here.
This is San Clemente custom wine cellar project in its finished form.
