I’m doing something roughly the same size. My quote is a little more than double that for racking alone. There’s a very wide range in what you can spend for racking. Given mine is being done with local Northeastern Ash (which is plentiful because all of the trees are dying) – I’m now wondering if it’s high. That said, I’ve seen the finished product and it’s first rate.
Fwiw, I put in quite a bit of half bottle racking (and I’m glad i did) but honestly half bottles are definitely the thing I buy in bulk the most. Having half bottle sized wooden/case size boxes might be the best storage solution.
For that kind of money i would want Stainless Steel modular racking. However, i’m a metal fabricator and I made my own so that’s my preference. Never did like the look of the vast expanses of dead tree carcass racking that lines the walls in the garish “homage to bacchus” rooms commonly seen in high end cellars. Shame there’s few options for steel but they are out there.
I especially second Warren’s comment about diamond racking. It’s pretty, but not very efficient. With all the different bottle sizes out there, it’s really not great for anything except Bordeaux bottles, and is still a PITA with Bordeaux style bottles that get wider at the top. Stick with slots.
We made the cellar as part of a renovation and on the advice of fellow board member John Sprow, I don’t have anything I would do differently because John’s advice was spot on. The cellar isn’t a showpiece and was never meant to be, but it is perfect for my needs and I don’t think a bigger one would be a good idea for me.
I used redwood racking and for 1536 Champagne (fits everything but Krug), 1632 bottles (fits everything but Fourrier) and 180 Mags and I paid less than $11K delivered, but not installed. It is all double deep bottle racking and I wouldn’t change that. The room has uneven wall height so I racked to the ceiling of the back wall, which is lower, and left a top shelf on either side. I use this to store the random 3L bottles that I have in their own boxes as well as a couple of things I want to keep in OWC. I think that diamonds or other bulk storage are useless. I need a step ladder to reach the top racks, but it’s not an issue.
I used a Mitsubishi split system with a Cooltbot and it works great. The upside is that my home HVAC guys installed it and can repair it if necessary, this is really critical. We also had backup generator installed that can run a bunch of the house, including the cellar.
We used spray foam insulation and the temperature is really stable and the cooler rarely needs to run. We used a glass exterior door but it is in a spot where it won’t get direct sunlight.
I have a table on casters that I find very useful for storing bottles upright and decanting as well as for half-finished re-corked bottles. It’s also useful for cataloging and putting wine away. Being movable means it is never really in the way.
Something you will want to get are decanting baskets/cradles. I find that when I am at home, pulling the bottle on its side directly into the basket and then either serving as is or decanting using that is great. No more planning ahead to get sediment down.
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I just finished my cellar and I’m actually redoing part of it because Krug bottles don’t fit in standard racking and tip horribly in mag racks. I used unstained redwood which is perfect for my more modest budget friendly cellar. +1 on the double-deeps as it’s a great way to get more space. Also I am definitely keeping 2 offsite lockers to store bottles that I’m not going to look at for at least 10-20 years (I’m still youngish).
However, i’m a metal fabricator and I made my own so that’s my preference.
Well that’s a great thing for you but most people don’t do their own. I don’t know from metal, but I made mine from wood because I like that dead tree expanse. I would never pay what some people are talking about and surely wouldn’t pay to have someone build a cellar, but most people don’t build things for themselves nowadays and wouldn’t know where to begin.
Of course, they don’t make their own wine either, or mill their wood or mine their metal.
I wish I could do some metal work. I like building things, and with wood to some extent know what I’m doing, but given that most people hire people to do things today, the OP kind of asked for lessons learned, no matter who built the cellar. Based on that request, a lot of the notes made so far are on point.
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Nope, built on unstable geology, right near the Cascadia Subduction Zone. The wine is insured, and I have some “earthquake safety” measures built in, such as rubber straps I’ve fabricated, and pipe foam insulation over parts of the racking to lessen the sliding of bottles if things get rattling. However, if the Juan de Fuca plate slides further beneath the continent (North American plate) in my lifetime, I’ll have bigger things to worry about than broken glass in my wine cellar.
Cheers,
Warren
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OP asked what you would do differently. I had some wooden racking initially, not built in, just freestanding stands really. It wasn’t modular so i had issues when i wanted to expand things. I looked at some various options being well aware that sometimes its cheaper to buy vs build but didn’t see anything that fit the needs of my space. Still there some good metal racking options out there but its often overlooked since wood is just what people traditionally use for some unknown reason.
I had my space ready to go, Apex wine cellars finished it from there 1,200 750 spaces and 100 Magnum slots a couple glass racks, redwood racking.Mind you this was 2002 7k
For the racking and installation.
Per the point on bottle shape variation, also look into bottle height variation if you’re putting in an inclined display row on a single-depth racking. Some of my bottles (Carter is one) are too tall to go into the display row.
I could have easily solved for this at installation time by adding in some spacers where the racks mount to the wall (instead of mounting flush)
Minor inconvenience, but something I would do different.
That sounds high, but the finish is probably adding cost. I assume that includes installation? I have space for c. 1000 bottles and paid just over $4K for the racks in redwood. Go them from a Apex via Costco. They did the design based on my input. That did not include installation.
Unfortunately Costco is no longer offering racks from Apex. I went with Vigilant in Dover, NH. Total was just over $3k for about 1000 bottles in unfinished redwood. They do mostly commercial and custom work but do offer a very high quality selection of standard racking.
All this chat about wine cellars, I started thinking about all my mistakes. So having had several cellars over the years, I think there are three things I would have done differently.
- Start off with a bigger cellar. I extended the cellar before putt most of my wine in off site storage.
- Use a split system from the beginning
- Have a good percentage of the cellar for boxes of very young wine.
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I really like the concept of double deep single bottle racking for the top (from waist on up), and plain shelves used to hold OWC’s (sliding in the long way) on the bottom. This really works for me both in density of bottles, and also functionally. I would also have some sort of tabletop for standing up bottles, doing inventory work, etc. Think carefully about your lighting placement as well. Insulation - I used a mix of foam boards with a few inches of spray foam on top, which gave me a high R value/vapor without spending a fortune on 6" of foam.
Final thought, if you are assembling your racks outside of the cellar… make sure you can get them through the doors and will all fit into place. My experience was a close call.
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I also wish I went with a split system instead of a through the wall unit. The through the wall unit is just a bit too noisy. I expected the loudness to be comparable to my old wine cabinet (decibels almost the same), but in practice it is quite a bit louder. The other annoying thing about the through the wall unit (cellarpro) is that it kicks on every fifteen minutes for humidity control and runs for several minutes - even in winter when the compressor only needs to turn on once a day or so for cooling. So the unit ends up running much more often than I originally expected. A coolbot with a standard split system seems like a much better way to go.
My other regret is that I wish I added a small amount of bin storage. It would be nice to have some dedicated space to put daily drinkers so that they don’t take up individual racking space.
Have marked out a space for a cellar in the house we’re building in the Florida panhandle. Can anyone recommend a contractor that operates down there? I see reference to apex earlier in this thread but they are based in nevada. Space will be 5’ x 16’8” and 9’6” high. Any idea how many bottles that will hold?
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If you’re wanting to maximize capacity with the common lattice-style racks, you’ll want to put racking on both long walls, with an aisle between. Looking at Wine Racks of America, it looks like you could fit 46 columns on each wall. With extenders to the ceiling, you could fit around 2200 bottles.
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happy with my cellar, but I would definitely make the boxes for 6 and 12 bottles larger for these modern huge bottles that won´t fit it normally -
and a special department for my Franken bottles (Bocksbeutel) which I now can only store in extra boxes -