PVC Pipe Wine Rack - Best practices?

Hi All,
I remember a year or two ago on that other board too dastardly to mention by name a certain thread about people who stored their wines in PVC pipe (or cardboard if I recall correctly). Any of you here have any tips, tricks, hints, or hindsight as I look to create mine?

We’re moving into a place with very nice passive space that is hidden and out of the way. I figured the cheapest and best way to use the space was for longer term wine storage via the DIY pipe racking (and will likely be cutting it myself). The more immediate drinkers will go into the 'scraper in the living space.

As an FYI: I buy mostly Burgs, CA Pinots, and German Riesling. Funky bottles, no doubt.

What diameter piping worked best for you? What length would you cut them to? What type of pipe would you use?

Many thanks in advance.

-Nathan

Poppy?

Yeah, any help Poppy? I remember you having a go at this…

Anyone?

I thought it was Leslie?

Oops. Eric, you may be right…

It was Leslie in her off-site unit with cardboard tubes…

Bzzzt!! Nope, it’s Colonel Mustard, in the Library, with the Candlestick

I have some very heavy duty cardboard tubes, that were professionally stained by someone who obviously must have sold these commercially. (Mine were given to me.) The outside is a burgundy red color and the inside of the tube is black. I use them for the top row in my home cellar.

They are ten inches long. The cardboard material is a full 1/4" thick. The tubes are made from sequentially wrapped/glued heavy cardboard layers, not corrugated–think the back of a heavy duty legal pad only layered about three or four times thicker. They are extremely sturdy they have a pretty massive tensile strength. The interior diameter is 3 and 7/16". These are just barely big enough to hold bottles like Rochioli single vineyard pinots/chardonnay and Ramey chardonnays, but slightly too small for the likes of Turley and Talley. They’ll hold all conventional burgundy bottles, except for the huge glass monsters like Le Moine that won’t fit.

Leslie…Poppy…what’s the difference?

a portion (if not all) of the library wines at St. innocent are stored on PVC in the barrel room. I might have a picture or two around that I can share.

One eats vegetables

Hah, that’s good!

yup.

IIRC Leslie wanted to maximize the number of bottles she could store in her locker whilst still being able to easily access the bottles at the bottom. She needed tubes with a diameter that would accomodate her biggest bottles, but didn’t want them to be any bigger than that, so she could get more tubes in the locker.

She measured the dia of a bunch of bottles, determined her tube size, and had cardboard tubes custom fabricated to this dimension. I believe the standard PVC tubes were either too big or two small to maximize the space.

If space is not a problem, PVC tubes, long enough for double deep storage, might be a good option. You would probably need a sturdy wall on each end to keep the tubes from rolling all over the place.

We need to put the word ‘Mac’ or ‘Apple’ in this title for her to come read it.

I use cardboard tubes in one of my lockers that are from the place Not Lisa used (I’m spacing their name). They are based in Indiana and they can manufacture the tubes in any diameter you’d like (I had them make two different sizes). If you do two bottles deep, make sure the inside diameter is wide enough to get your hand in to pull out the second bottle. BTW, I love them. It’s worth it to me to sacrifice some space for access to onesey, twoseys

I’ll work on the name

BING - Phenix Tube http://www.phenixtube.com/

Dennis was the sale person we had back then

The general bottle size we used was 3.51" inner diameter
Old pax bottle tubes were 3.766" ID x 3.940" OD

I just sent her a PM.

I’m in trouble now…

David,
Excellent. Thanks for the info. Did you have them cut to roughly 9" each for the onesies and 18" or more for the double deeps?

-Nathan

Nathan:

I only used twosies. I don’t recall whether I had then cut at 24 or 25" (I think the latter)