A wine cellar is one of the few rooms where a poster has to pass a technical test before it can be beautiful. The temperature is low, the lights are deliberately off, and the air is often damp; these are precisely the conditions paper likes least. At the same time, it’s a room that longs for art: stone arches, wooden racks, and rows of bottles create a striking backdrop, and a well-chosen poster can turn a storage space into a room where you want to linger. Here, we go over the figures, designs, and frames that work in a wine cellar or wine room.
Quick facts: According to Wikipedia’s overview of wine cellars, wine can be stored satisfactorily between 7 and 18 °C as long as temperature changes are gradual. Around 13 °C is considered ideal for both short-term storage and long-term aging, and wine normally ages between 10 and 14 °C. Temperature swings of 14 degrees or more cause wine to breathe through the cork and mature faster. Passive cellars are usually underground and cost nothing to run.
What a wine cellar does to paper: 13 degrees, darkness, and still air
The figures above apply to wine, but they also tell you something about your posters. A room kept at around 13 °C is too cold to sit in wearing a thin sweater, and when you come in with warm air from the stairwell, cold and damp can condense on cold surfaces. Paper absorbs moisture and can warp, and a print hanging directly against a cold stone wall can develop mold spots behind the frame. That’s why the first rule in a wine cellar is never to hang a poster without glass or acrylic, and to keep the frame a little way from the outside wall using a couple of spacer pads in the corners.
Humidity is wine’s eternal debate. Wikipedia notes that experts disagree on how important it is: a French study cited by Matt Kramer claims that humidity inside the bottle is 100 percent regardless of the closure, while Alexis Lichine warned that low humidity can dry out corks and recommended a layer of gravel, about 2.5 centimeters deep, on the floor, sprayed with water from time to time. Anyone following that advice effectively has a damp room, which means extra care is needed with anything made of paper. An inexpensive hygrometer on the wall will tell you whether your cellar is dry enough for a poster or only suitable for one in an acrylic frame.
Darkness is the other factor. Wine doesn’t tolerate light, so many wine rooms are dark almost all the time. That’s good news for print inks, which fade more slowly in the dark. It also means the poster needs to work when viewed briefly, under a directional lamp or warm-white lighting. The image should therefore be readable in two seconds, because people rarely spend half an hour standing in front of a picture in a wine cellar.
Mouton Rothschild labels: when the wine bottle became a work of art
There’s no better backdrop for art in the wine cellar than wine’s own history of collaborations with artists. Château Mouton Rothschild in Bordeaux is the best-known example. Baron Philippe de Rothschild came up with the idea of having a famous artist design each vintage’s label, and following the success of the 1945 label, this became a permanent and significant part of Mouton’s renown in 1946. Since then, the labels have become a little gallery in miniature.
A few years illustrate the range. In 1973, the label was dedicated to Pablo Picasso, who died on April 8 that same year, and it was also the year Mouton was elevated to Premier Cru with the motto “Premier je suis, Second je fus, Mouton ne change”. In 1978, Jean-Paul Riopelle submitted two designs, and the baron liked them both so much that he split the production and used both. In 1993, Balthus’s drawing of a young girl was blocked by the US regulatory agency ATF, so the US version has a blank space where the image would have been. In 2000, the vintage was bottled in bottles with gold enamel, and in 2013, Korean artist Lee Ufan adorned the label. Read more in Wikipedia’s article on Mouton Rothschild.
“In a wine cellar, the bottle label is already a work of art - your poster just needs to make it feel at home among the bottles.”
This connection is useful if you’re decorating. If you want art in the cellar that feels right at home, choose motifs that echo label art: graphic shapes, bold blocks of color, typography, and still lifes. Our retro and vintage posters often have just the old-fashioned poster aesthetic that looks great beside a wine rack, while artworks by famous artists let you create your own Mouton tribute with a Picasso- or Miró-inspired graphic poster.
Motifs to suit the wine room: grapes, still lifes, drinks, and black and white
The classic choice is wine-themed art: a bunch of grapes, a corkscrew, a drawn carafe, or an old champagne advertising poster. It works, but can easily feel predictable. A more interesting choice is to take inspiration from food and the table. A still life with lemons, pearls, and glasses has the same quiet, dark color palette as a wine cellar, and you can see how well it works in beverage and cocktail posters, where several designs benefit from the contrast between glass and a dark background.
Black-and-white designs are another safe choice. They hold up in poor lighting, are unaffected by warm light and yellow bulbs, and look like they have always been hanging there. A black-and-white photo of a vineyard, a café window in Paris, or a bar in New York can sit against brick or limestone without competing with the bottles. If you’ve already read our guide to posters for the home bar, the principle is the same, but in the wine room you should take an even more restrained approach, since the room is less social and more contemplative.
Avoid overtly commercial designs and very colorful pop art prints that grab all the attention. A wine cellar is about patience, and the pictures should encourage it. Better to have one or two prints you discover than five that shout.
Lighting deserves some thought of its own. Since many wine rooms are only lit when someone enters, you can make a small picture light or a directed spotlight above the poster the only decorative lighting. Choose a warm light source that gives off little heat, so neither the paper nor the wine is affected, and turn it off when you leave. Then every time the door opens, it becomes a moment of staging: the bottles in shadow, the poster in the light, and a room that suddenly feels thoughtfully designed.
Size and placement: vault, brick wall, and narrow shelf
Wine cellars rarely have smooth walls. You have stone vaults, brick, concrete, or painted plaster, and often shelves and racks that take up most of the space. So measure the available area first. A 21x30 or 30x40 works on a narrow end wall between two racks, hung so that the center is about 145–150 centimeters from the floor. On a wider end wall where you stand to taste, a 50x70 can give the room a focal point, while two 40x50 prints in a row can create a rhythmic effect along a long vault.
The frame matters more than you think. A black wooden frame is classic, but dark oak goes better with wine racks. For damp cellars, a frame with acrylic glazing and a sealed backing is a better choice than thin glass, and if you’re unsure, you can read our comparison of glass or acrylic in poster frames. All our frames are gathered in one place, and you can add a mat to create extra space between the image and the backing.
Tip: Buy a small hygrometer for a few dollars and leave it in the cellar for two weeks before deciding. If it reads over 70 percent humidity, choose an acrylic frame, keep the poster away from the exterior wall, and replace the silica gel packet behind the frame after a couple of months. If the reading is lower, you can hang the poster in a regular frame on an interior wall.
Active wine cellar or passive cellar: two different rules
Wikipedia distinguishes between active and passive cellars, and the difference determines which poster you can choose. An active wine cellar has insulation and climate control, often a cooling unit that keeps it at 12–14 degrees year-round. The air there is dry and stable, and a framed poster will do well, much like in an ordinary room. This is the kind of wine cellar you often see built into a modern dining room, behind glass, where a beautifully framed poster is a perfect fit. In the collection posters for the dining room, you’ll find designs to inspire you.
A passive wine cellar is underground, unheated, and governed by nature. Wikipedia describes passive cellars as inexpensive to run and unaffected by power outages, since they rely on naturally cool, damp spaces with minimal temperature variation. Here, humidity is your main concern. Hang posters only on interior walls, choose an acrylic frame with a sealed backing, and expect to replace the paper if it starts to ripple over time. See our guide posters for the basement floor for more about moisture and light in rooms without daylight.
No matter what kind you have, you should avoid hanging the poster above the cooling unit’s air outlet or a door that is opened often, since temperature fluctuations are greatest there. The same rule applies to wine: Wikipedia notes that fluctuations of 14 degrees or more affect maturation. What’s bad for the wine is bad for the paper.
Frequently asked questions about posters in the wine cellar
Are you ready to give your wine cellar some art? Start with beverage and cocktail posters or a graphic classic from our retro posters, choose a frame with acrylic glazing and a sealed backing, and let the bottles share the space with an image that can withstand darkness and cold.