Wine Cellar Doors

Wine cellar doors come in all shapes, sizes, and materials. Due to the fact that most wine cellars are climate controlled, the main feature to look for in a cellar door is exterior grade construction (solid core, insulated glass, and tight weather stripping) that will keep the cold side cold and the warm side warm. Exterior grade wood wine doors are made using various techniques such as dowel construction, cope and stick, or LVL veneer. Glass wine cellar doors should have tightly sealed frames, mullions, and double or triple pane insulated glass. Outside of the visible styling of the door, what makes a wine cellar door the “best” is its ability to hang straight and close tightly against the weather stripping. No matter what door shops say about the quality of their “exterior grade” doors, if they aren’t well made and designed to seal tightly, the seams will leak air and force your expensive cooling system to work harder and wear out sooner.

Wine room doors are insulated by the use of weather stripping (felt, rubber, or silicon bulb) to create a pressure seal around the sides and the top of the door when it closes. To seal the gap along the bottom of the door, you must employ either a threshold and door sweep that closes tightly against it or an auto door bottom that creates a seal with a rubber gasket that comes down and presses against the floor.

If you are not actively cooling your wine cellar with the use of a cooling system, you can choose whatever type of entry door you want. Interior grade, exterior grade, even decorative grates will work the same since you aren’t trying to seal it tightly. If you are cooling your wine room, an exterior grade door is necessary to keep the cooled 55° air and the 72° air of the rest of the home separate from each other so that they don’t condense and cause water to form. For this same reason, in addition to a quality door, cooled wine cellars require insulation and a vapor barrier to be installed behind the sheetrock or green board.

Doors can be veneered using an array of different wood species. Popular choices are alder, spruce, mahogany, oak, maple, hickory, ash, walnut or pine. When it comes to wine cellars, often the better question is “what is the best core type for a wine cellar door?", because this is often a big differentiator. Cheap wine cellar doors use LVL (Laminated Veneer Lumber) cores to fill up the space in your door’s interior space. This results in a lightweight door rather than a heavy, solid one and is also a poor insulator, leading to air transfer and less efficient cooling. Higher quality cellar doors employ a solid wood core which creates a heavier, more luxurious feel as well as providing much better insulation properties.

Any time a wine cellar door includes glass, the rule of thumb is to only use insulated dual- or triple-pane glass panels in order to minimize the air transfer from one side of the door to the other. For wine cellars with all glass doors, low E-glass (which cuts down on ultraviolet light entering the wine room) is recommended but not 100% necessary.