Right now, our wine racks are a tad on the empty side with all the celebrating we've been doing around here lately, but normally, things are more on the tight side with barely room for a new bottle or two.

Amateur wine drinkers everywhere are starting to feel the pinch when it comes to squeezing out some space for their collection, and this has (not surprisingly) resulted in a whole new business to help cater to us.

From Cellar sellers are serving aficionados:

As wine collecting becomes a more popular American hobby, some aficionados find they just don't have enough space to store their cases of Bordeaux and California cabernet.

Americans are drinking more and better wines, experts say, so businesses are offering humidity- and temperature-controlled storage to a crowd of collectors that's growing in number and sophistication.

"When you start buying wine, it sneaks up on you, and pretty soon you have run out of space," said Tom Matthews, executive editor of Wine Spectator magazine, the bible for wine enthusiasts.

Business is so good at Fairfield, N.J.-based LLK Enterprises that, even after it doubled its 10,000 square feet, the facility is full again. LLK, an affiliate of the New York wine shop Acker Merrall & Condit, hopes to triple its space in 2007, said storage director Tim Sharpe.

[...] Neubohn said he opened the business because the market was underserved and other storage companies weren't run by "wine people."

In his storage space, the temperature is set for 55 degrees and misters on the wall keep humidity between 60 percent and 80 percent.

His customers monitor their collection through the company's Web site, and Neubohn coordinates shipments from around
the world.

"We're very much like a bank. About $8 million to $10 million worth of wine is in this room," he said. "Reputation is very important."

This reminds me a lot of my days working in tech services and getting our back up tapes sent to a media storage facility. Brilliant!

Photo from Morgue