Houston is a city that takes its entertaining seriously—and for a growing number of homeowners, that means building a place to store and show off their wine.

In-home wine rooms have evolved well beyond the dusty basement cellar. Today’s versions are sleeker, more compact, and designed as much for aesthetics as for aging. Whether freestanding cellars, built-in displays, or full walls, these climate-controlled spaces are becoming a signature feature of Houston’s residential design scene.

Jost Lunstroth of Nos Caves and NCV Custom Wine Rooms and Sarah Palmer of Vineyard Wine Cellars agree that in-home wine displays are more popular than ever—driven by homeowners who want the restaurant-caliber wine wall experience in their own living rooms, and by a city whose dining and drinking culture makes collecting feel less like a hobby and more like a natural extension of how people live here.

Some go rustic with brick or limestone; others lean contemporary with glass, metal, and acrylic. Common options for beginning enthusiasts include a wine room or wall for 200 to 300 bottles, while more experienced collectors may own thousands of bottles stored at home, in vacation homes, and off-site. Either way, cabinetry allows connoisseurs to pack in more bottles.

“It’s nice to have a dedicated area for that, whether for lounge seating or a bar sink or extra storage,” says interior designer Aileen Warren of Jackson Warren Interiors. “People should know it’s an achievable goal.”

Warren’s most recent project was in an existing home, where she tapped into an underused kitchen space to create a 29.5-square-foot, climate-controlled wine room filled with white oak cabinets, racks that can hold almost 550 bottles, and a couple of humidor drawers for storing cigars. “I love those special moments in a home when they bring a lot of joy to the homeowners and their guests,” she says.

Climate-controlled wine rooms are typically built for red wines, which improve with age and need to be stored at 55 to 60 degrees with 50 to 70 percent humidity. That’s similar to the conditions required for cigars, leading many collectors to add cigar drawers to their wine rooms.

Palmer estimates that a climate-controlled project starts at $35,000 to $40,000, with a minimum of 300 bottles. Larger projects can hold 3,500 or more, though collectors with that much wine often keep a good portion of it off-site.

Palmer’s parents launched a Dallas wine storage facility, Vineyard Wine Cellars, 25 years ago for that very reason. The company now has showrooms in Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston—the largest of its outposts. A wine club is next. “We take all the guesswork out of the wine cellars,” Palmer says. “We want to make sure the space and all aspects of it are seamlessly integrated.”

Wine walls are another reasonable entry point for those who aren’t ready to invest in hundreds of bottles or don’t have as much space. Simpler to install and adaptable to any room, they’re a popular choice for high-rise condos, where building restrictions may limit what can be done.

For those who consider wine as a central part of entertaining guests, the storage can be designed accordingly, built into entertainment rooms and bar areas with nearby seating.

“We see clients entertaining a lot, and they want labels visible, and then they talk about their trip to Napa,” Palmer says. “It’s a lifestyle, for sure.”