My cellar is the original “coal” room of my house built in 1922/23. The work table and the wooden cabinet were already in place when I bought the house in 1989. I used cedar planks, offsetting the neck and bottom-end-bottle half-circle cuts in the wood for the space under the table and between the cabinet and the exterior wall. Used two-inch strips of balsa wood to keep bottles in place within the cabinet. As best depicted in second picture, rows there and under the work table alternate between one rack and two racks, to better allow access to back rows. A poor man’s cellar:
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Isn’t this Bill Koch’s cellar?
This would make one very cool entrance to a cellar
https://www.instagram.com/reel/ClmZHBKgajV/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Can anyone tell me where to find the wooden wine storage boxes that you put on the shelves? When designing mine, I opted for those instead of the pigeon holes (based upon my research). However, I can’t find any of those boxes. I’ve checked with at least three wineries that I am on their list, and none off them for sale on their website.
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Completely utilitarian use of wasted space, originally unfinished space below the closet above and complete DIY. Concrete block foundation on the two interior walls, very little temperature change in central VA. Framed and finished when we did the rest of the basement, cut down sliding doors to fit the space.
PVC pipe cut to fit, can get 2 bottles per pipe though I don’t keep that many on hand any more to need it. Used some thinner drainage grade pvc at the top for flexibility to get it to fit all the way to the top.
Can fit some 1.5L and odd shaped bottles, if I had more of them, or can use some of the empty space on the top. 300btl capacity
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Ok. After a three month hiatus, I’m back in the saddle. This weekend I got two things accomplished.
- I finished insulating. I used fiberglass insulation with r-21 on the walls and double-depth r-42 in the ceiling.
- I purchased about half of the tongue-and-groove pine boards that I will need for the interior. I had intended to start finishing them this weekend, but I ended up having to drive to the next town over because our local store didn’t have what I needed.
Next step: Finishing interior boards with Tung oil.
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I had this exact same setup in my offsite storage locker…2 lockers stuffed with tubing…it worked great for storage. Keeping track of where the wines were on the other hand was a disaster at the time.
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Do you mean the wooden cases that French Chateaus ship in? High-end wine retailers usually have these - the ones I know sell them for <$5 a piece. Sometimes they just want to get rid of them - I picked up a bunch for free recently from a wine.com warehouse that was selling some retail racking on FB marketplace.
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Just got into wine 4 years ago, Built this cellar from scratch, holds approx. 1,100 bottles.
My collection is at roughly 200 bottles with ways to go. Left wall is all French wine, Middle wall is Italian and wall to the right is all California wine. Trying to get my french numbers up.
Construction of the cellar includes 2lb spray foam walls at R22 and ceiling at R30, cellar is located in my basement. Cooling unit is the KoolR magnum unit. Works ok for the price.
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Amazing!
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Very nicely done!
I’m in the process of trying to do a proper one myself. Did you build your own racks? I have a smaller space so I’ll probably go double depth but I can’t really find do-it-yourself rack kits up here in Canada. Not looking to make it from scratch though, would take forever.
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I got the racks at rosehillwinecellars.com but still had to customize each section to make it all fit.
The center display is made custom out of 3/4" finished cherry plywood.
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Thanks for the link, I’ll check it out. I’m guessing you measure, send specs and they custom build it? Find pricing was reasonable vs a contractor?
Would love to save a bit and fill with more bottles.
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I’m in the states, but my handyman has built DIY wine racks. He said it wasn’t terribly difficult to build a nice one; of course he has 20 years of skill and all the tools. There are a lot of DIY plans on the internet. Some look nicer than others. It might be worth trying to find someone in your area.
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Love that space to grow, though you will likely need 2k capacity unless you are very diligent with your bottle count and buying habits
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I build custom homes so i was able to call in a lot of favours, id recommend trying to assemble the racks your self if you have the skill set, as hiring a contractor to build this cellar would definitely cut into anyone’s wine buying budget!
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Very nice job….I don’t care how big of screws are anchoring those jumbos it makes me nervous just looking at it 
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I check every night with one eye closed hahaha… Kidding fastened with 3" wood screws with solid wood backing behind drywall. But ya those 3L bottles scare me…
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I was just looking at the company’s website and it states that the racking is designed for standard Bordeaux bottles. Have you found them to be too tight for Burgundy, Barolo, Champagne, and fat bottles? I have a Vinotheque cabinet where that is a real problem. Also, how was the shipping costs? Thanks.
I have these in my cellar, from the “Redrack” modular collection. The answer to your question depends on which module you get.
The F07 is ideal for most Bordeaux and Riesling, and some other regions that use Bordeaux style bottles (Spain and some Italian, mostly). These fit in one-bottle rows, five across, with almost no extra space (sometimes you have to a little jiggling to get all 5 in there). Very space efficient without having to stack bottles in bins. Burgundy-shaped bottles and heavier/thicker/broad-shouldered Bordeaux-shaped bottles (this seems to include all CA Bdx-shaped bottles, even the ones that don’t seem heavier, as well as some Italians and other non-Bdx Bdx-shaped bottles) will also fit, but only four across, with some wasted space. Less space-efficient. A very few of the very largest bottles won’t fit at all or have to be jammed in a bit.
The F01, F02 and F04 individual-bottle racks are the same as above except they are 4-across (8 across in the 01, but 32" wide) no matter what, so less efficient.
I have some open bins racks, but I’m not sure if they are F09 or perhaps an older model. They will hold 8 bottles per bin without having to be too persnickity about Bdx vs Burg shape, but too many of the very largest 750s in the same bin will bring that down to 7. Since they are stacked they are a little more space efficient than those above.
The F08 Magnum/Champagne will hold three Bdx-shaped mags plus a 750 of Champagne per row, so very space-efficient with those. With Burg-shaped mags or just bubbly all the way across, there is some wasted space. I don’t have any mags (including bubbly) that won’t fit in these height-wise, it’s just a matter of how many you can get per row, width-wise.
All in all, I have found these to be very good for the price but obviously some space efficiency and/or beauty could be gained with a custom setup, at a cost. They would probably be more space efficient for folks other than those with very Bdx and/or Riesling-focused cellars if they were a little wider so that the F07 held 5 across of either Bdx or Burg shaped bottles, but then they wouldn’t be 16" wide which of course helps with securing them to the studs.
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