Category Archives: wine cabinets

Glass Wine Cabinet: Perfect Wine Storage System for a Lavish Home

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Glass Wine Cabinet

This Glass Wine Cabinet is an Art Piece

Modern wine storage is becoming more popular among homeowners because it is sleek and adds a luxurious appeal to a space. In one of their recent projects, Blue Grouse Wine Cellars installed a glass wine cabinet in a home with a lavish interior. Learn more about the features of the wine cabinet and why you should get one too!  

Captivating Glass Wine Cabinet: an Art Piece in a Vancouver Home   

Whether you want a full wine cellar or a wine cabinet to store and display your wine collection, consulting a design specialist is a good idea. Make sure that your chosen builder has extensive experience and knowledge about the technical requirements in building climate-controlled wine storage facilities.  

Blue Grouse Wine Cellars, a top-notch builder in Vancouver, has proven its expertise in designing high-quality and attractive wine cellars. They have also designed and installed refrigerated wine cabinets with elegant features.  

In one of their projects, they created a stylish glass wine cabinet for a home with a lavish interior. It is located on a mountain in West Vancouver with captivating views of the ocean. The homeowners filled their houses with contemporary features. They wanted the back wall of their dining area near the kitchen to be converted into a wine display area.   

After a thorough assessment and planning, Blue Grouse Wine Cellars came up with a design that would complement the existing décor of the home and maximize the storage capacity of the space. The custom wine cabinet with a glass front is now an art piece in the dining area of the home.   

Features of the Custom Glass Wine Cabinet Racking  

Glass Wine Cellar Doors and Metal Wine Racks

Glass Wine Cellar Doors and Metal Wine Racks

The custom glass cabinet is 8 feet wide, 8 feet high, and 1.5 feet deep. The millwork of the cabinet has a frame made by Blue Grouse Wine Cellars. They applied an Espresso finish to achieve the tone that would go well with the kitchen millwork and create color harmony with the entire dining area.  

The wine cabinet can be moved to a different location because it can be disassembled and reassembled. Relocating the cabinet will require some renovations. We recommend this glass wine cabinet for those who have plans to move into a new home in the future but still want to have a wine display that has the look of a custom wine cellar.    

Contemporary Metal Wine Racks 

Wood or metal, your racking will look great if you work with a professional. Blue Grouse Wine Cellars is known for its innovative wine storage solutions that can be tailored to fit the functional, aesthetic, and financial requirements of the client. They offer kit and custom wine racks made from wood, metal, or a combination of these materials.   

In this project, the Blue Grouse team chose metal wine racks from VintageView. These metal wine racks are perfect for small spaces because of their installation flexibility. They can be installed in a tiny nook or any narrow space of your home or mounted on the wall.   

Wine Cabinet Turned into a Stylish and Spacious Residential Wine Cellar

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Stylish Residential Wine Cellar in Vancouver

Stylish Residential Wine Cellar in Vancouver

Blue Grouse Wine Cellars, a group of expert builders, transformed the existing wine cabinet in a Vancouver home into a beautiful residential wine cellar with a higher bottle capacity. They designed the wine racks with form and function in mind to achieve this. The rest of the components were carefully thought-out to maximize performance and enhance the visual appeal of the wine room.    

Beautiful Transformation of a Wine Cabinet into a Residential Wine Cellar in Vancouver  

If you have a growing wine collection and your existing wine storage room cannot accommodate your bottles anymore, you must invest in a bigger residential wine cellar. Working with a master builder will ensure that all of your requirements are provided.    

The owners of a beautiful condominium located overlooking the ocean on Beach Avenue in Vancouver reached out to Blue Grouse Wine Cellars, one of our partners in wine cellar construction. They needed help renovating their custom wine cabinet into a wine cellar with a higher bottle capacity.   

The Blue Grouse team assessed the needs of the client with keen attention to detail. They created a well-thought-out plan for building a wine storage structure that would keep the wine safe for many years to come and allow the homeowners to display their favorite vintages beautifully.   

As master builders, they understand that careful planning plays a significant role in ensuring the design and construction of climate-controlled wine cellars. For many years, they have shown their expertise in converting spaces into stylish and functional wine rooms using tastefully designed wine racks, elegant doors, and high-quality wine cooling systems.  

Impressive Features of the Vancouver Residential Wine Cellar 

Vancouver Residential Wine Cellar with Wooden Wine Racks

Vancouver Residential Wine cellar with Wooden Wine Racks

With extensive experience and passion in designing and building custom wine cellars, Blue Grouse Wine Cellars always makes sure that every component they install suits the requirements of the client. In this project, the Vancouver residential wine cellar, they had to create a wine storage system with a higher bottle capacity than the existing wine cabinets installed in the small condominium. Limited space did not hinder them from exceeding the client’s expectations.  

Any space in your home can be utilized for wine room construction. In this particular project, there was an existing wine cabinet installed in a limited space. The Blue Grouse team enlarged and reconfigured the space.    

Custom Wine Racks for a Compact Residential Wine Cellar in Vancouver 

The design of the wine racks has a significant impact on the overall appeal of a wine room. Consulting with a specialist like Blue Grouse Wine Cellars will ensure that your wine racks fit your needs.  

The wine storage system in this residential wine cellar in Vancouver was designed based on several factors, including the size and location of the room, the number of bottles intended to be stored, and the aesthetic preference of the homeowners.    

Side Walls 
Residential Wine Cellar Design Vancouver

Residential Wine Cellar Design Vancouver

The 5 Benefits of Wine Fridges and the 5 Best Brands to Choose From

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Wine fridges are a wine collector’s best friend when it comes to an affordable and efficient wine storage solution. It’s easier to organize wine bottles using wine fridges. With the many styles and sizes to choose from, wine fridges can offer the wine storage abilities you are looking for.

Wine fridges are also known as wine cabinets. Unlike regular refrigerators, wine fridges are equipped with the right equipment and climate conditions for proper wine aging.

So, why choose a wine fridge?

Here are the 5 benefits of wine fridges:

Wine Fridges are Functional

Wine fridges operate in a practical way, thanks to the simplicity of their construction; every part of the equipment serves its purpose.

Wine fridges can be space savers. They are available in various sizes and bottle capacities, to suit your storage needs.

Wine Fridge Selection

Wine Fridge Selection

Storage capacity is maximized with wine fridges. Most models can store different sizes of wine bottles, so you will not be limited to just one bottle size in your collection.

Wine fridges can also be incorporated into the cabinetry design of your home. They are easy to mix and match, and blend well with various cabinetry materials.

Wine Fridges are Efficient

Efficiency is one of the assets of wine fridges. Compared to regular refrigerators, wine fridges are specifically designed to ensure the optimum aging of wines.

Wine fridges are equipped with cooling systems that maintain the ideal wine storage environment. Temperature and humidity are the two critical factors that most affect wine aging. With the help of cooling systems, temperature and humidity levels are constantly maintained.

Single or Dual Temperature Option - Vinopro Wine Fridges

Single or Dual Temperature Option – Vinopro Wine Fridges

Wine fridges with dual temperature zones allow efficient wine cooling specifically for red wines and white wines. Red wines are stored within the temperature range of 16 to 20 degrees Celsius, while white wines are stored within the temperature range of 6 to 12 degrees Celsius.

Some wine fridges have alarm systems, which send signals when there is a significant deviation in the temperature or humidity levels. This gives you an assurance that your wines will always be in good condition.

Wine fridges are energy savers as well. Trusted brands of wine fridges are designed with an energy-saving mechanism that can help lessen the cost of electricity usage.

Wine Fridges are Stylish

Wine fridges come in various styles, sizes, and colors. There are wooden wine fridges, aluminum walled wine fridges, all glass door wine fridges, and different finishes to choose from (see examples below).

There are half size and full size options. Some brands of wine fridges are available in different depths, like the Wine KoolR’s single deep and double deep-format wine fridges.

Stylish Le Cache Wine Fridges

Stylish Le Cache Wine Fridges

For some brands, you can choose different shelving configurations and wine fridge frame and panel colors, like that of EuroCave wine fridges (see examples below).

Wine Fridges are Affordable

For wine collectors on a budget, buying a wine fridge is a great alternative for building your own custom wine cellar.

Vinopro BI-56 Wine Fridges

Spend as little as $749 (see Vinopro BI-56 Wine Fridge) to $5,000 for a wine fridge, depending on your wine storage capacity needs and design preferences.

Wine Fridges are Durable

Wine fridges are ideal for long-term wine storage, as long as you choose a high quality brand. Top-of-the-line materials and technology are now being used to produce impressively functional and sturdy wine fridges.

Vancouver Custom Wine Cellar Renovation Project

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Custom Residential Wine Cellar Renovation in Vancouver (a Processed Video Transcription)

Vancouver Residential Renovation with Walnut Racking

Vancouver Beach Avenue

Beach Avenue, Vancouver

Hi. I’m Adrienne from Blue Grouse Wine Cellars. I’d like to tell you about our wine cellar project that we completed recently in the Vancouver downtown area on Beach Avenue, and here’s the picture of the area.

You will see how beautiful it is down there. We’re working in a condominium building.

Wood Racking Wine Cellar Before

The Old Wine Storage Cabinet of the Client

The client that we worked with had their existing wine cellar or wine cabinet shown in this picture here. It was built with three separate temperature-controlled wine cabinet, one behind each this door.

We’re not really quite sure why it was designed that way, because wine cooling system could definitely handle the space. In any case, they had this for a number of years, about 20 years. And we’re running to update its look, and install properly working wine cooling equipment.

They also wanted to expand the size to accommodate their ever growing collection. So we started by doing designs for them.

Custom Wine Cellar Drawing overall viewWe went through a few revisions, and eventually ended up here with this design. These were the drawings that we created so they could see in 3D exactly what they would be getting, and how it would fit the size.

You can see that there wasn’t a whole lot difference than what they started with, but the depth was greatly increased. There was some storage area behind this cellar that we stole space from that used to be a bathroom before their first home wine cellar. So they had easy water connection for the wine cooling system.

The 3D Drawings

Custom Wine Cellar Drawing elevationsLooking through the drawings here. This is the plan view, the top view, so you can see exactly all the measurements, and the various elevations, A, B, and C. Elevation A is the back wall. Behind this box of this cabinet is where the cooling unit is housed.

You can see in this further stripped down view what the cooling unit looks like. It kind of a large metal box with the wall ducting coming up the top and connect to the fitting up here where the cold air blows out into the cellar.

This grill here is where the warm air comes out to the unit. The return air is at the toe kick. It’s a pretty sophisticated design. They didn’t have to have grills. There’s a gap in the toekick at the bottom here where it opens so the air can feed back up to the cooling unit.

We got a shaker style door. They were looking for a pretty clean contemporary design, so you don’t see any fancy moldings or anything here.

The wine racking has some display shelves. These aren’t fold up because as you can see in this view, that the ducting is running up behind. So that hiding the ducting is what giving them some display space for the bottles that they wanted to stand up.

Custom Wine Cellar Features

Lighting

They got LED lighting incorporated at the top to shine down the display feature. They also have LED lighting over top of the display row for the individual bottle racking on either side of the cabinet.

Racking Components

Custom Wine Cellar Drawing elevations B and CLooking to the next elevations B and C, are mirrors of each other because these are the two sidewalls. They have some diamond bin storage here.

This is for the bulk wine, so when our client has wines that are all the same, all those bottles can fit into the bins here. It maximizes the storage capacity.

It wouldn’t be a good idea to include too many of these if you are somebody who buys 1 to 2 bottles at a time, because you wouldn’t want to mix the bottles in here because getting bottles at the bottom can be quite tricky.

This is the display row running horizontally through the middle. This carries through the perimeter of the room. It has LED lighting over top of the bottles to highlight them.

Elevation D is the front row of the cellar, which was full frameless glass. Now this isn’t the most efficient way to build a Vancouver residential wine cellar, but it can be done and we took careful attention to make sure that the doors had really good seals around them, so we don’t have air escaping or warm air coming into the wine cellar. It’s 12 mm clear tempered glass. They got some pull handles here on the front, and some top and bottom hinges.

Wine Refrigeration System

The cooling unit in here is a really powerful cooling unit. It can actually handle spaces up to 2,000 cubic feet, which is obviously a lot larger than this wine cellar was. But with this full frameless glass wall and no R-value in the front, we do have to compensate for that.

The Completed Home Wine Cellar

View Through Glass Doors into Custom Wine Cellar

Vancouver Wine Cellar Installation by Blue Grouse

So the finished project looks like this. Just as you saw on the drawings, everything matches. That was what the racking is. The installers followed the drawings assembling this wood wine racking and finishing the custom wine cellar.

All the racking was made from walnut wood, and really high quality walnut wood without any knots. And then it had an oil finish applied to it to darken the wood and give it a richer look and feel.

The shelves up here are glass shelves that were installed on brackets. This is where the liquor bottles were displayed by the client. And they’ve got some of their featured bottles highlighted in the display row here under the LED lighting.

I’ll just show you a few more pictures. This picture here shows you the full fronts glass wall. You can see they got some nice pull handles, pretty minimal in their appearance. Brushed nickel to match their brushed nickel catch hardware for the door hinges.

Worry-Free Wine Collecting with Blue Grouse Wine Cellars: Learn the Conditions Every Wine Collector Should Know When Storing Wine in Their Home.

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While most of the commodities are consumed within 24 hours from the time of purchase, wines are often saved by the purchaser for long-term storage and aged. Wine is one of the things that get better with time when stored and aged properly, but it can also spoil and deteriorate rapidly if kept in inappropriate conditions. Proper storage and aging will enhance wine’s flavor, color and quality in general.

As an expert in wine storage, Blue Grouse Wine Cellars always considers the following critical factors when designing and installing Vancouver wine cellars.

Proper Wine Storage – Factors to Consider

Light

wine storageWines, especially white wines should not be subjected to excessive amounts of light. They should not be stored under direct sunlight, and fluorescent lights with ultraviolet light in the wavelength of 325 to 450 nm.

Light may adversely react with the chemical compounds in wine and create potential wine faults or defects, which often leads to wine having a light-struck aroma (or gouts de lumiere – French for tastes of light).

Wine maintains its clarity and citrus aroma if stored in a dark room. This is why most wines are packed in colored glass and stored in wine cellars with a minimal amount of lighting.

Humidity

Humidity is another critical element of wine storage that must be considered, especially if wine cork closures are used. The efficacy of the wine cork depends upon the humidity level. While the optimal humidity range is not yet established and varies from one wine expert to the next, the often-cited ideal humidity level is between 60 and 70 percent.

The ideal humidity range will keep the cork expanded and in shape, providing a good seal to the wine bottle. When wine is stored lower than the ideal humidity level, cork will dry out, shrink or crack, allowing oxygen to enter the bottle and come in contact with the wine. Oxidation then occurs resulting in degradation of wine.

Additionally, when wine is subjected to a higher humidity level, mold may occur and while this will not affect the wine itself, the bottle and wine label will deteriorate.This provides yet another reason that storing your wines in a standard kitchen refrigerator is not advisable, since it is not designed to maintain the right humidity levels.