CHAPTER XXI.
THE CELLAR FOR WINES.
The cellar for good wine should be a suitable lodging for this welcome guest in every well arranged household. A great deal of wine, good and middling, is spoiled beyond redemption from being deposited in a bad cellar. There are many families in this great metropolis who, if well lodged themselves, never bestow a thought on how their wine is lodged. Yet this is a matter of essential importance if the master of a household consults his own health or the health of his guests.
A wine cellar should neither be too hot nor too cold. It should neither be near the kitchen, the scullery, nor the laundry fire; nor yet out of doors, exposed to every change of temperature in this variable climate. No gentleman valuing the quality of his wine, or the health of those who are to drink it, would convert a spare bed-room, or cock-loft, or cupboard into a wine cellar, though in a warm climate Madeira may be improved by being placed under the sun’s rays on the leads of dwelling-houses, a system much practised in the great cities of America. A cellar, as Mr. Redding clearly and succinctly says, “should be a cellar in material, site, temperature, and solidity of construction.” The finer and more delicate wines grow turbid, ropy, or sharp when stowed away in unfitting localities. In such a city as London, all one can hope for or expect is to secure a cellar of an equal temperature, solidly constructed of brick or stone. The variations of the external atmosphere should not be allowed to penetrate within it. As Barry wrote ninety years ago, “the structure of a wine cellar ought to be such as will most effectually defend the wine from the frequent variations of the external air, adjacent fires, and the agitation of carriages, and to preserve an equal degree of heat, though some variations must be unavoidable.”
Lighter wines require a colder cellar than the strong wines; but, as a general direction, the temperature of a cellar ought to be from about forty to fifty degrees. The size of a cellar ought to be in proportion to the quantity of wine for which it is designed. The situation ought to be low and dry. Double doors are an advantage to every cellar, as one may be closed before the other is opened, and thus the changes of the external atmosphere cannot penetrate. Cellars in private houses are rarely ventilated, and thus foul air is frequently generated. In cities the back of the house is the best place for the wine cellar, as the bottles are not then shaken in their bins by the motion of carriages.
No sink or sewer should be in the neighbourhood of a cellar, and no vegetable or animal matter should be deposited adjacent to it. A wine cellar should contain no other liquor than wine. Champagne should be carefully laid on laths or in sand, and never placed on their bottoms, as from this cause the wine will speedily lose its effervescence. Quarry sand is the best substance in which to imbed the bottles, and laths should be placed between each tier.