It's just long enough to bring the wine home from the store and drink it with dinner. For budding enthusiasts who don't want to commit to a cellar or cave in their home, Prather suggests converting a hall closet. Additionally, cooling units vented to the outside of the house can protect against temperature fluctuations. For Prather, it's constancy and not perfection of temperature that keeps wine safe to store. There are no wine police who'll arrest you if you go above a certain temperature.
Opinions vary a bit.
Steve Potter, co-owner of Vintage Cellars in San Marcos, says temperature is the killer and that's what people with home cellars have to keep an eye on. Other than being mindful of the temperature, Potter agrees that a converted closet is fine. Potter has run Vintage Cellars for 10 years and he says business has picked up in the last few years in a good economy as more budding enthusiasts are making wine their hobby. More and more people want to preserve that investment by getting a wine cellar. But as Prather points out, since only half of 1 percent of Americans have thousands of dollars invested in their wine collection and 15 percent of us drink wine on a regular basis, starting a cellar is still a relatively esoteric undertaking.