Hot days in the wine cellar

Today was another hot afternoon, and like the past couple of 80-plus days, I spent it in the wine cellar.

Our wine cellar is simple, full of ways to reuse what I already had available. Ikea shelving, cardboard wine boxes painted black, with thick tapestry fabric covering the walls. In the corner is what makes this the perfect place for wine:  the storage tank for our well. It's constantly filling with cold water, keeping the room a constant 55 degrees.

During more than a year of storing our friends' wines in our cellar, things got pretty mixed up... no room to organize wine by type as is my preference, or even find slots for new wines we acquired. To make things worse, since we've both changed our eating habits and aren't drinking much wine right now, space isn't opening up very quickly. So it's tough to be organized... and I'm trying not to let that bother me.

There's room for shelves or a cabinet at the end of the cellar, something tall and narrow to fit under the window. But until I find the right thing and there's room to maneuver, I putter. I'll update the inventory, to remove the bottles we have shared with friends, and add the new bottles from wine tasting road trips to Walla Walla and the Yakima Valley. And new wines from our wine clubs: Cultura, DeLille Cellars, and Plain Cellars.

Once the cellar is organized to my liking, there's decorating to be done. I have enough of these tumbled stone winery coasters to pave the tasting counter.

One of the original 6-light windows from the farmhouse will go behind the tasting counter, like this window in the Cultura tasting room.

There's a cute wine table in the cellar, which holds large format bottles and glasses, and lets me display a wood box with three of Dave's wines. He made wine for eight years, and it was fun to design labels for him.

There's an oak wine barrel just outside the cellar, topped with a thick round glass top, with a pair of leather bar stools.

Wherever we go, whatever town and house we end up in, there will be a place for a wine cellar. It's right at the top of the list.