We’re getting ready to finish the rec room in our basement, part of which will be a passive cellar room. The goal is capacity over aesthetics, so it will be almost exclusively individual bottle slots, single deep, floor to ceiling. Single deep is because I simply don’t want to go digging in the back row. No diamond bins since I find them impractical for my “no more than 3 of a kind” buying habits. If my arm is twisted hard enough I might do a display row, but I wasn’t planning on it.
Is there a consensus on the “ideal” dimensions L/R, up/down for these single bottle slots? When it comes to “not a standard bdx bottle”, I’ll need to store red burgundy, riesling, rhone, and champagne. No giant Turley bottles here, and essentially zero magnum or larger bottles. I’m ok with doing two sizes if necessary (maybe one size for champagne and red burg, and another for the rest?). The racks are being custom built by our contractor (a cabinet maker by trade), so he’ll happily build whatever sizes I ask him to.
The most common bottle sizes are between 3 and 3 1/2 inches diameter. You can build to fit both Bordeaux bottles and Rhone bottles. You have troubles with some Turleys, some Beaujolais, and a few other big fat types. Depends on the size of your rails.
Curious, why must the cellar be made out of wood? If one went for a composite material (to the extreme, metal shelving), wouldn’t capacity increase as the shelving width would come down dramatically? I don’t have a cellar, more a question/observation.
Not necessarily. The racking fills the void space in a matrix of circles (bottles). The limiting factor is where you place the racking members to have the bottles end up as close to touching as possible. But whether the rack pieces are 3/4” or 1/8” won’t matter, it will just effect overall spacing.
I found that 2-3/4” spacing with 3/4” rack members is close to perfect for fitting everything from Riesling to Pinot. Oversized (turley and some champs) bottles won’t fit and sometimes two Pinots stack on top of each other touch. If I get some time during the work day I will sketch out a dimensioned picture to better show what I mean. It’s difficult to articulate in words
When I built my cellar, which has since been expanded, I put in wood racks which were 3 5/8 openings which fit most bottles. I put in one 36 bottle magnum rack which has been very handy for Champagne and oversized bottles.
The easiest but somewhat less capacity is to rack all champagne sized. Then you can fit pretty much anything in and not worry about what type of bottle goes where. I am guessing since you are not going with double deep racking max capacity is not a big issue as if it was, double deep despite a bit of inconvenience, is the way to really max out storage much more than the bottle size options. One can also do some Bordeaux and some champagne but you’ll need to carefully plan the mix in the design and as you load. Err on more champagne sized so you have some flexibility if things change. I have always gone double deep for storage. I have done cellars all champagne sized and currently use mix of the two sizes. I am on my third build out. My cellar is pretty static a mix works fine for me now but would have been a PITA many years ago when I was starting. Good luck!
Regarding capacity, the space in question will be roughly 8x11 with ceilings just under 8 ft. Door on one of the short walls, and racking around the other 3. I think that will give me a capacity of 1100-1200 bottles, plus my full size Eurocave. I’m currently sitting at roughly 700 bottles in inventory and based on our consumption rate really don’t need to expand. So I suppose me saying that capacity is a primary concern really means maximizing the available space while keeping everything readily accessible, and not having any niches or cabinets or “furniture” features.
A mix of standard and magnum racking sounds like a reasonable plan. I’ll measure some of my bigger bottles tonight to see how large they really are. I think it’s primarily the champagnes (CdC is an awkward shape, for example), and some of the red burg bottles are bigger than others. I currently have everything on wire racks with individual divots for each bottle, and some bottles fit these better than others. The nice thing about them is 375s still fit, since there’s a solid rung of wire for the bottle to nestle into. We don’t have many, so the solution of a thin shelf insert in a standard bottle slot where needed sounds like an easy solution.
I built my racking tiers horizontal rather that vertical, and I space 1x2’s on 3.5 inch centers. After milling, a 1x2 is only 1.5 inches, so in essence, I have 3/4’" of wood(half of the 1x2) , a 2 inch space and the another 3/4" wood (half of the next 1x2) for each bottle. Works for all but the oversized, and the larger champagne bottles(which I do not buy).
I have a customer that purchased a double-deep wine rack from The Wine Rack Shop. http://winerackshop.com/
Quality is great and easily fits larger base bottles
At one point Wine Racks America also had “Turley/Pinot” shelving or something similar, which was about 1/4 or 3/8" wider per unit, but the same height. That’s one approach, a magnum rack is another approach.
I would look at your current cellar contents to see what percentage of bottles need larger racking and design racking that’s approximately that percentage for “oversize” bottles, whether mags, champagne, or just obnoxiously oversized bottles.
Did a quick inventory tonight, or at least a semi-random sample, as all of my bottles are currently stacked cordwood-style in boxes awaiting construction of the new cellar… The dimensions suggested on the Wine Racks America link don’t match my own bottles very well. Here’s a sampling of what I found amongst bottles near the top of a box:
Bordeaux: 3.0 typical, and none smaller. Pavie and Haut Brion were 3.21 at the shoulder.
Champagne: 3.45-3.6 typical. Krug 3.91, Comtes 3.96, with Dom Ruinart BdB the largest at 3.99. Krug halves are 3.17, and Deutz Cuvee William halves are 2.9.
Red Burgs: 3.21 typical, so spot-on. Ponsot, Lamarche, and Jadot Domaine bottles are 3.45. The largest I found was an Amiot-Servelle at 3.51.
White Burgs: 3.21 typical. PYCM largest at 3.48.
Beaujolais: 3.22 typical. Follard and others 3.49
Red Loire: 3.25 typical. Guion and Baudry Croix Boisee 3.45
Rhone: 3.25 typical. Beaucastel and other CdP 3.46.
Italy Red 3.0 to 3.17 (mostly Barolo and Brunello)
German Riesling: 3.0 typical. Halves were 2.375
Sauternes halves 2.56
Alban: 3.46
Maybach and other CA Cab: 3.2
Rioja: 3.0 typical. LdH Bosconia 3.21
Modern red Spain: 3.45 (such as Alto Moncayo)
Based on all of this, it seems a “normal” slot should be 3.6-3.75" wide clear opening with .75" supports on each side, and maybe 3.0 vertically between supports to fit the majority of items. And then a smaller number of 4.1-4.2 wide x 3.5-3.75 tall for Champagne and Mags. Half bottles would likely need a thin filler shelf to fit in the normal slots, but everything else i measured today would nestle in quite well.
There are several companies selling wine racking that offer both suggested racking and finished racking options. You enter the room dimensions and their program, sales person will provide suggested layout and pricing.
Issues are what percentage of each size bottle you intend to store. Champagne is one tenth of our displays. Syrah is a similar number and Chardonnay is slightly more, so all those require larger sized racking. Having your Champagne, Chardonnay and Syrah close together allows similar sized racking. There is racking available for all sized bottles. Your needs are different than mine as a retailer displaying wine. I doubt you can come up with the perfect solution initially so I would suggest you be “flexible” with you initial installation, allowing for some change/alteration as needed.
