Wine
Racks -
how to choose the right wine racks for
your cellar
The objective of
wine racks
is to carry bottles securely in a horizontal position, in as dense an
arrangement as possible.
It is important for
bottles sealed with corks to be laid down to keep the cork moist.
Bottles with screw caps
can be stored standing upright but generally this is less
space-efficient.
Wine racks can be
individual cells of timber, steel or plastic, simple shelving or bins.
Individual wine
racks are
the most convenient for selecting bottles. Some racks can cause damage
to bottle labels; designs vary in bottle density; price variations are
more to do with aesthetics than efficiency.
Bins carrying 12 or 24
bottles are ideal when large numbers of the same wine are being stored
but the resident bottles can be susceptible to destruction if subjected
to earthquake movement. Diamond cubes and rectangular bins can be useful
for storing wine bought by the case, however, as you drink your way down
through the bin you will create more and more wasted space. Mixing
different wines within a bin will lead to constant disturbance, as you
have to move the wines on top to see which wines are stored below!
Wherever possible, use
single depth wine racks. Wine racks which carry bottles two deep can lead to
difficulty in finding some wines and unnecessary disturbance of wines
moved to reach the wines behind.
As a rough guide each
square meter of wine racking will carry 100 bottles.
Avoid using bulky
wine rack systems, such as stacked field tiles; it is wine you are trying
to store.
