Professional wine storage operations are dedicated facilities. They are built from the ground up, with no other purpose in life but to protect your wine. You’re paying good money for the service. You have a lot invested in your wine collection. You deserve no less. 

From the standpoint of climate-control, protecting your wine involves more than just providing good cooling equipment. Here are just some of the reasons why your wine collection is so well cared for at The Fine Wine Reserve:

 Location

• Location is a key factor. If we could have found a cave for rent, 20 meters below the ground in downtown Toronto, we would have located there. But they’re hard to find, so we chose the next best thing – we recreate that environment.

• Although some operators will locate just about anywhere, there are specific requirements if one is to provide the level of performance expected from a professional wine storage facility. Temperature stability, robust security, and customer convenience can be very difficult to achieve, and any attempt to do so first requires space with a unique combination of thermal, security, and operational characteristics.

• The Fine Wine Reserve (FWR) spent two years searching for the right location, during which time we refused over 100 properties. Finally, in June of 2003, FWR found the ideal location. Engineers, architects and contractors were then sent in to study the building envelope, conduct site surveys and perform heat load calculations. Only then did we put together a comprehensive plan to construct, renovate and equip the space for the application.

• Over the following eight months, nearly $400,000 went into construction and renovation activities to perfect the location for the application. Very little of those funds were used for aesthetic purposes. The result is a wine storage facility with a level of security, protection and convenience that exceeds industry norm.

• Although time consuming and expensive to construct, the facility is now such an effective “insulated box” that temperature stability can be achieved over very narrow tolerances over all time periods (both diurnal and seasonal). That is the holy grail of wine storage, and separates the professionals from the non-professionals.

Building Envelope, Insulation Parameters & Leasehold Improvement

• The cellar is located in basement level space about eight feet below the ground. The floor is concrete slab sitting on undisturbed soil. The entire floor is sealed to the outside environment using a special high performance polymer not found in standard building supply centers

• All exterior perimeter walls are sheltered from direct sunlight or severe weather events. All walls surrounding the cellar are constructed from 22 to 48 inches of solid brick & masonry.

• Within this bunker-like structure, we then built a “building within a building” to achieve maximum temperature stability. Six inch stud walls containing 5½” of mineral wool insulation were built around the entire inside perimeter of the facility. The mineral wool maintains full insulating value in high humidity or even wet applications. We then wrapped the entire facility with 6 mil vapour barrier, and a ½” layer of waterboard. Total R-value of our exterior perimeter walls exceeds 25.

• The ceiling is made up of heavy timber planks about 6” in thickness. To the underside of this, we add a continuous vapour barrier, and a 3” layer of mineral wool insulation. Total R-value of the ceiling exceeds 20.

• Steel I-beams supporting the ceiling are wrapped with 3" of mineral wool insulation, and then framed with waterboard. We do this to prevent even the slightest transfer of heat or cold along the beams from the exterior of the building.

• Partition walls between administrative facilities (mechanical room, washroom, etc.) and the cellar are 6" thick and insulated to R-20+ to maintain stability in the adjacent areas.

• All means of egress into the cellar area are separated from the non-climate-controlled zones by an air-lock or buffer zone so that on-going operations do not adversely affect temperature stability in the cellar.

• All windows along the perimeter wall were covered with ¾” plywood, followed by 6” of concrete block to increase security and temperature stability in the cellar.

• All doors are heavily weather-stripped and insulated. Doors have heavy-duty LCN closer mechanisms, closers very rarely seen except in the most rugged applications. Where required, automatic closers/openers and timed alarmed systems are employed. All these steps are taken to reduce the effect that operations have on the integrity of the thermal, vapour and security barrier.

• Facility lighting is low voltage, low lumens, and virtually non-heat generating. Some are designed to shut down automatically when it senses the facility is vacant.

Equipment Redundancy

•  We have allowed for seven separate and independent cooling systems totalling over 60,000 BTU’s or five tons of refrigeration. (Five are now in place, two will be installed as we expand into Phase II next year.) The design includes high margins of over-capacity. Since any problem with a unit does not effect the operation of the other units, we have excellent equipment redundancy protection.

• The facility is so well insulated, that even during a heat wave event we can maintain the climate very close to design conditions with only three of seven units running. Under an emergency lock-down procedure we can maintain the environment with only two units.

• Although it would have been less expensive to install fewer, larger units, only multiple units properly mix the air and true temperature stability in a large space. Evaporator fans run continuously (24/7) on all units to keep the air fresh, stable and homogeneous.

• A strict maintenance program ensures all equipment continues to operate as designed. In the event of a malfunction, there is sufficient redundancy in the system to maintain our needs while we wait for parts and service.  

• All heat load calculations and systems design was conducted by a qualified mechanical engineer that specializes in HVAC engineering. The plan was then reviewed and tweaked by other professional consultants with decades of experience in these equipment systems. Our engineer was the same individual responsible for storage facilities at Peller Estates Winery and other wineries in the Niagara wine region.  

Power

•  The majority of the population relies on electrical power supplied by an individual feed station. When there is a problem in the line or the feeder station itself, the result is a lengthy power outage. We are located in an exclusive area of the downtown core that is part of a “power network”. In the event of an interruption, our area can immediately draw power from alternate feeders in the network. The result is very reliable and stable power supply (and reliability statistics confirm that fact). Although catastrophic power outages lasting more than a few days have yet to occur in this area, should there be one, our power will be restored quickly in this heavily populated, economically important, and “elevator-dependent” area of the city.

• Our facility is so well insulated that two conditions would have to occur before it could be considered a “catastrophic” power interruption: 1) the failure would have to exceed 5-7 days in length, and; 2) the outage would have to occur during peak summer conditions. Power outages of less than about two to three days will have virtually no effect on us.

 Monitoring and Operating Procedures

•  Facility temperature and humidity is monitored 24 hours a day and 7 days a week using sophisticated monitoring equipment. Probes measure both air and wine temperature, and space humidity every 15 minutes from various locations within the cellar. The data is continuously recorded onto data collectors, and the results reviewed by management on a daily basis. This data allows management to make real time adjustments to the climate control system in response to unusual and dramatic weather events. (This system is pending installation.)

• An emergency monitoring system is connected via relays to the burglar alarm system. If temperature falls outside of a certain pre-determined limits, the system immediately notifies us of the situation. Like the security system, the monitoring system continues to work uninterrupted through any power outages using standby, “instant-on” back-up power.  

• The manager's office and residence is located less than two blocks away from the facility. Response time of less than 2-3 minutes is possible should there be a temperature alarm or any other alarm event. Other back-up personal are available to respond should the manager be unavailable.

• FWR installed a special room in the facility to condition large volumes of new product coming into the facility at the wrong temperature. This room is used to bring the product to correct temperature before it is introduced to the cellar space. Regarding the quantities of new wine coming into the facility at any one time, strict upper limits have been set to maintain the integrity of the climate in the facility.

For more on wine storage, see The Basics of Wine Storage.

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