Should You Have A Dehumidifier In Your Wine Cellar?

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If you're a wine enthusiast, having a wine cellar in your home means you can have the right bottle on hand for any meal and occasion. This is especially true if you plan on keeping multiple unopened bottles of wine for more than a year. The cellar also allows you to continue expanding your wine collection for years to come while keeping the investment from going to waste. Choosing from the many gorgeous home wine cellars to make your own is just the first step in this process, though. You'll also need to ensure that the cellar provides a dark and cool location for your collection. Experts consider the ideal wine cellar temperature to be in the range of 53 to 59 degrees. The right humidity level is also important, and there are some circumstances in which running a portable dehumidifier might be useful.

Ideally, the humidity should be around 60% to 70% in wine cellars — that's higher than the 30% to 50% humidity levels you'd want in your home for health and comfort. The extra moisture in the air helps prevent wine corks from drying out and causing the product to spoil or evaporate, which may happen if levels drop below 50%. On the flipside, humidity levels above the recommended 70% amount may cause wine bottles to leak and potentially become exposed to bacteria. If the humidity in the cellar becomes higher than desired, it may be time to use your dehumidifier to bring it down to acceptable levels. 

Given the damage that incorrect humidity levels can inflict on bottled wine, it's important to keep your cellar in the recommended range. A humidity gauge in the space can help you keep tabs on the levels and adjust them as necessary (you can find a humidity gauge, also known as a hygrometer, for less than $15 — like this one from ThermoPro). If the reading breaks 70%, consider running a portable dehumidifier in the room until the gauge shows the levels dropping to the desirable range. 

Once the levels are back in the wine-friendly range, turn off the dehumidifier. Otherwise, you could risk damaging the wine bottle corks with dryer-than-normal air. On the other hand, if the wine cellar air is really dry and well below the 60% threshold, run a humidifier in the room to push the humidity level higher. Wine experts recommend using a wine cellar-specific humidifier for best results. Again, you will want to pay close attention to the ambient humidity readings, so you only run the device when necessary. Humidity levels that are persistently higher than normal may be a sign that it's time to dehumidify your home.