TUSCALOOSA | Are cases of Chateauneuf de paup piling up in the garage Wondering what to do with yet another vintage of Bordeaux A trio of businessmen Charles Renfroe, Eddy Minges and Allen Henry believes Tuscaloosa is no backwater when it comes to wine collecting. That's why the Tuscaloosa natives decided to open Napa Valley Wine Storage. Wine consumption in the United States has increased more than 40 percent in the past decade, reaching 650 million gallons in 2007, according to the Wine Institute, an industry trade group. As the popularity of wine increases, more people are starting their own collections, either to drink or as an investment. The facility is located at All-American Self Storage in the booming Commons North development at the intersection of Rice Mine and New Watermelon roads. 'We opened Napa Valley because the connoisseurs of wine are really becoming more sophisticated,' Renfroe said at the wine-tasting he and his partners held at Napa Valley's grand opening Wednesday night. 'People are investing in it.' 'As the North River area grew, we knew that this would be the next step.' Napa Valley Wine Storage, which the owners say is the first of its kind in Alabama, is a 3,000-square-foot facility with 34 climate-controlled storage units. The units range in size and price, from $65 a month for a 5x5-foot unit that can hold about 720 bottles of wine, to $400 a month for a 15x15 unit that can hold about 2,160 bottles of wine. The temperature is kept at 55 degrees and the humidity at 70 percent so that the wine ages in ideal conditions, said Steven Greer, the office assistant at All-American and Napa Valley. Henry said that while anyone can rent one of the storage units, most of their business comes from businesses or people who don't have room left to store wine in their own wine cellars. 'A lot of people buy truckloads of wine at one time and drink it over a five-year period,' Henry said. 'This will give them somewhere to store it.' Wine stored at Napa Valley is heavily secured. A password and security card is required to get into the building, cameras are set up throughout the facility, another password and security card are required to get into the wine storage area and a security company continuously monitors activity in the building. 'The security here is to the third power,' Renfroe said. Renfroe, Minges and Henry have been in the storage business in Tuscaloosa for 25 years. Their original storage facility, All-American Self Storage on Rice Mine Road, is a traditional storage building, as is their All-American Self Storage North River facility, though the North River facility has a few extra features. The normal storage units at All-American Self Storage are climate controlled like the wine storage area, but the temperature is kept between 50 and 80 degrees. The storage units at All-American also feature wall-to-wall carpeting, which is another first in Alabama, Renfroe said. 'The storage business is a business created by a need,' Renfroe said. 'We're just doing it in a different way to differentiate ourselves.'

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