I thought you might be interested in a first-look at the official LaWineClub.com wine cellar.
The wine cellar is a completely rennovated otherwise mundane room in a fortified building that has served as our backup network operations center. I thought I could kill two birds with one stone since we had to keep the room cool for the computers. Why not turn it into a wine cellar as well?
In the coming weeks, I'll put up pictures of the transformation of the room, which involved completely re-insulating it and using special vapor barrier and wallcovering. The entire room, with the exception of the floor, is covered with a textured vinyl/fiberglass composite (which effectively gives it a high-tech look and makes the whole room one big dry-erase board).
I decided to go with primarily metal wine racks. I feel they conduct heat better and result in cooler wine and are much stronger than wood. There are approximately 1300 bottles of wine in the cellar, which is monitored with motion, cameras, temperature and humidity probes. I'll get a call on my cell phone if, for example, the temperature rises or goes below a set threshold and we have a system in place to graph the conditions of the room every few minutes and generate a report which is accessible from any web browser.
Live Online Cellar Status from the Net Posted by Mike Perry on 2006-01-16 00:10:58
