In luxury homes, wine cellars are no longer considered enough for the most serious of wine connoisseurs. The latest luxury design trends are homeowners pairing their cellars with premier wine tasting rooms, allowing them to provide the richest experience for themselves and their guests.
A traditional wine cellar is designed to store wine, showcase collections, and appreciate vintage wines. Enhancing the flavour of wine requires controlling temperature, humidity, lighting, and luxury wine racking, through the use of a cellar space.
However, the same conditions that help enhance the flavour of wine do not necessarily enhance the wine-tasting experience. Cellars have cooler temperatures and are not hospitable to relaxation, social gatherings, or hosting guests.
Wine tasting rooms are devoted to the social aspect of wine. When paired or combined with a wine cellar, these rooms provide luxury homeowners with the ultimate environment for showcasing and enjoying their wine, particularly with guests, patrons, and other wine connoisseurs.
There are many reasons why this newest trend has taken up in the luxury home scene.
The Purpose of Your Wine Tasting Room
Most luxury homeowners who collect wine want more than a closet for storing their bottles. Wine collection is about discovery, conversation and tasting. It’s a very social hobby. Enthusiasts want to display wine that is rare, exotic, and valuable or obtained at great expense of time and money. Fine wine is to be introduced to guests, either by intimate tasting or during a party or celebration. Or, you may just want a place to store your wine, end of story, and that’s ok too. No need to create an elaborate cellar if your life with wine happens upstairs in the kitchen.
Wine Tasting Rooms Can Enhance a Luxury Home’s Ambiance
A proper wine tasting room is more than just a room adjacent to a wine cellar. Just like the cellar does for the wine itself, a wine-tasting room should enhance the enjoyment and tasting of wine. Numerous additions and features can be used in a wine-tasting to provide a more luxurious experience during tastings. Comfortable seating, a large seating area, and a spitting bowl are some of the essential features of a wine-tasting room.
However, more luxurious and innovative additions can truly enhance the space. For instance, art collections can be integrated into the space, allowing guests to appreciate artistry while they taste wine. Glass partitions between the tasting room and cellar are also popular, allowing for a clear view of the entire wine collection. When done to the highest standards, a wine-tasting room should provide a value beyond what another room can for the purpose of enjoying wine socially.
Great for Hosting Gatherings
Traditionally, a wine tasting room will feature a large table or seating area, allowing homeowners to host five, ten, or even fifteen guests at a time. However, it is also possible to create a more intimate space. With these rooms, enhancing the wine tasting experience is important. However, the true value of this room is in how they bridge the social experience by providing a unique place in the home for gatherings. A truly functional wine tasting room can double as a space for enjoying gourmet meals, playing a game of poker, or relaxing. Luxury additions, such as art pieces, opulent materials, and temperature control, can make great impressions on guests.
Wine Tasting Rooms Add to the Resale Value of Your Luxury Home
While wine tasting rooms add value to the home environment, it should not be overlooked that they can also increase resale value for luxury homes. In the luxury marketplace, wine cellars and wine tasting rooms are particularly popular and attractive features, making a property more appealing or valuable to potential buyers. A wine tasting room denotes class and sophistication, which make them particularly attractive to luxury home buyers. When it comes to resale value, wine-tasting rooms that can perform a variety of functions (allowing for social gatherings of all types) offer the best benefit, appealing to serious wine connoisseurs as well as more casual collectors.
Where’s the Best Spot to Put a Wine Tasting Room?
If you have a hundred bottles in your collection, and perhaps a dozen cases that you have imported or specially ordered, you can probably build a wine room in an existing space on the main floor of your luxury home. If you have an open kitchen, an additional room like a large pantry with a chiller can be part of the equation. This is very convenient when entertaining, particularly if you have a caterer who is unfamiliar with your kitchen and your home.
If your wine hobby has escalated to a more serious level, possibly with bottles in the thousands and quite a few cases, more square footage is required. If you have very rare bottles that you’re keen to display, a cellar in the basement or underground is your best bet. Like an old-fashioned “cold room” that homes used to have, where your grandma stored her root vegetables and preserves through the winter, underground storage will keep the bottles cool. Display cases or even a dedicated room for displaying your best bottles should have cool LED lighting.
Have a Wine Tasting Room that Reflects your Personality
The design of a wine tasting room should reflect your personality, and bearing that in mind, it could also reflect your favourite wine region. A luxury wine room can be dark with heavy stone, a true “cellar” similar to what you might see in France or Italy. A more modern look is an all-glass wine cellar, right down to the ceiling; imagine your guests being able to admire your collection below their feet.
The sky’s the limit in terms of designing a wine room or cellar in your luxury home. It’s an investment, similar to your wine collection; one that should pay for itself in the long run.
Wine Tasting Room Add-Ons; Wine-Not?
If you feel your guests may need more stimulation than just wine and conversation (and if there’s enough room), incorporate a pool table into the wine-tasting room. Or, if the wine-tasting room serves the purpose of a peaceful sanctuary rather than a social zone, add in a bookshelf for your favourite reads and board games. Sometimes, nothing beats sipping on a glass of Merlot while reading a book.
Our real estate professionals can help you find a home where there’s potential for a wine-tasting space. Or, if you’re ready to sell your Oakville luxury home and want to increase resale value by adding in an amenity such as wine-tasting room, our real estate experts can guide you in doing this.