Your Guide to Professional Wine Storage in Walla Walla

We know a few things about wine, and one of them is that the complexity of flavors and notes in each bottle is only matched by the complexity of properly cellaring your wine collection. If you’re wondering how to store wine in a professional facility, this guide is for you. 

Drawing on our team’s years of experience in the wine industry, we’ve put together your comprehensive guide to choosing a wine storage facility, understanding the key questions you should have answers to when cellaring your wine, and what makes or breaks proper wine storage.

What is a Wine Storage Facility?

Professional wine storage is an outsourced storage process for your wine collection and is often utilized by wine enthusiasts. This storage service can be bare bones–meaning only a climate-controlled, self-accessible storage facility–or it can come with consultations, benefits, additional on-site security measures, and wine inventory management options. 

For wine lovers with extensive collections or collectible bottles they want to age properly, a wine storage facility is likely to be non-optional. Professional wine storage allows you to ensure your collection is preserved in ideal storage conditions, protected by on-site security, and easily accessible when you’re ready to enjoy. Many wine collectors are perplexed by how to store wine long term, and don’t have the space or setup in their own homes to keep their wine stored correctly. For this reason, more people than ever are turning to professional wine storage. 

Understanding How a Wine Storage Facility Works

A wine storage facility has a few key features and services you should assess when choosing somewhere to store your wine collection. 

Expertise and Experience

First, you want to know that your wine is being stored and managed by professionals who know what they’re doing and have plenty of experience. Wine storage facilities are generally managed by individuals with expertise in wine, wine making, storage, customer service, and hospitality. Look for a wine storage facility near you with a team of experts at the helm. 

Some wine storage facilities also include expert consultation as part of their membership perks. Sommeliers and other wine experts can help you decide how to catalog your collection, as well as understand how to properly insure it. Expert consultation can help you build your collection by understanding your current wines and ideas for future additions, as well as give you more insight into your wine investments. 

Wine Shipment Receiving

Wine storage facilities often receive wine shipments directly from your preferred wineries. Excellent wine storage facilities will ensure safe and secure delivery and keep you informed every step of the way, all the while keeping your wine at the right temperature, secure, and safe. At The Drayman House for instance, a wine storage facility in Walla Walla, we accept and receive wine deliveries from around the world to make sure our members’ collections are handled carefully as they grow. 

Wine Cataloging 

Many wine storage facilities offer some sort of cataloging or inventory management system as part of your membership. At The Drayman House, we offer members a complimentary membership to the cellar management solution InVintory. Cataloging your wine collection is an essential part of storing it, since you’ll want to be able to know and understand what it is in your collection with an up-to-date and detailed system. 

Wine Storage Conditions and Temperature

Of course, one of the core services wine storage facilities provide is proper wine storage conditions. Wine storage companies will provide ideal climate-controlled storage conditions, keeping wine at the correct temperature based on its varietal, age, and other factors to keep it from aging prematurely or developing undesirable characteristics. In professional facilities, wine storage lockers or units will be dark or dimly lit to prevent label fading and wine spoilage, as well as kept at the correct humidity level. 

Security and Monitoring

A wine storage facility must have sufficient security and monitoring on site, usually with cameras, recording, locks, and alarm systems. Be sure to ask any prospective professional wine storage facility for the details of their security system before choosing them to cellar your collection. This should also include considerations for natural disasters such as fire, flood, and tornado or hurricanes depending on the risk factors in your area. 

Easy Access to Your Wine Collection

Finally, wine storage facilities should give you easy and simplified access to your collection to enjoy it whenever you’d like. The best facilities offer access all days of the week with extensive hours. 

Walla Walla Wine Storage and Community 

We’re proud to be Walla Walla’s first professionalized wine storage facility, located in our historic building on North 7th Avenue. Our wine storage process is designed by a team with decades of combined experience, as well as an emphasis on community-building and providing members exclusive access to our carefully renovated space. Members use our stunning spaces to host parties, private events, meetings, and quiet evenings with a few friends, as well as attend members-only events. 

Call us today for a tour of our space or to learn more about our wine storage facility in the heart of the beautiful Walla Walla Wine Valley.