For wine connoisseurs, the wine cellar is one of the most important spaces in the home. It’s the perfect place to showcase collections that have been cultivated over years and in some cases even decades. Whether it’s your own private haven or a place you show off to friends and family, it’s important to create the perfect environment for your beloved collection. This means expertly managing access, temperature, humidity, and lighting. 

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Monitor the Humidity and Temperature

Your cellar should always be between 55 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Through smart climate control it’s easy for you to manage the space to make sure it’s always at the ideal temperature. You can also install sensors to track the humidity level in the room. Ideally, you want the humidity to remain at around 67 percent. If it goes higher than that threshold, you can receive a notification on your smartphone.

Manage Who Enters and Leaves

Though there’s little risk of a stranger purposely breaking into your wine cellar, you still want to have a proper system in place to manage access. This is especially important if you have any teenagers in the house that may be looking to sample your collection. Create unique codes for different members of your family and house staff so you know who entered at a given time and receive a notification on your phone. You also want to limit the amount of people that open your sealed cellar door to avoid ruining the perfect temperature and humidity balance in the room.  

Showcase Your Collection

Want to bring friends down to your cellar to show off some of your latest purchases? A great way to showcase your favorite bottles of wine is through a smart lighting control system. Install LED fixtures on the floor linked to motion sensors that light up as you walk in.

Dim your overhead lights and raise those directly over your bottles to make them the central point of the room. With easy control from a smartphone or touchpad, you can play around with your lighting to spotlight different wines every day. Make sure to stick to LED lights, as incandescent or halogen bulbs emit too much heat.

Keep Track of Your Inventory

Incorporate third party apps that let you track your inventory. CellarTracker lets you scan the barcode on each bottle to instantly add it to your catalog. For older wines, you can also add the information manually. Keep track of wines that were already consumed and rate how much you enjoyed them. If you want to try a new wine or want to follow up on a recommendation, you can even create a wish list.

Wondering if that 2011 Napa Merlot is still in the cellar? You can pull up live surveillance footage and zoom and pan cameras remotely to look for it. This way you don’t have to walk down to the wine cellar to see what’s available.

Give your wine collection the perfect room to shine. Reach out to a local BRAVAS partner to find out how you can bring these smart technology solutions into your home.