cypress heartwood
Cypress & Redwood are very closely related:
And the juglone from black walnuts kills them both dead as doornails.
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I have mahogany racking, redwood racking, homemade pine racking and cubes along with displays made from original wood boxes the wine comes in. They are all between 12 and 16 years old and solid as a rock. Everything was put together pre-drilled with screws. Nothing fell apart during the 2014 earthquake. They all blend in in a single room with European Birch laminate flooring. If I had any complaints it would be the redwood’s softness but that too is minor.
What is it?
The cedar used in cellars is western red cedar and doesn’t have the scent you are thinking of. My first cellar by apex was cedar.
Eastern Red Cedar is actually a Juniper.
It’s so pungent that Down South we use it in lieu of mothballs.
Jason, for me, genuine mahogany is from the Western Hemisphere and is either Swietenia macrophylla (sometimes called Honduran mahogany but it also grows elsewhere in Central and South America) and Swietenia mahogoni (traditionally called Cuban mahogany but it also grows in Florida and a few other Caribbean locations; historically the finest mahogany but it’s now quite rare.)
African mahogany (Khaya ivorensis) is a very distant relative to Swietenia but is, IMO, altogether inferior to its American cousin; it’s less expensive (rightfully so).
Philippine “mahogany”, Santos “mahogany, Royal “mahogany” are marketing labels and those woods bear no relation to genuine mahogany; think Gallo Chablis.
Sapele and a few other tropical timbers are also sometimes marketed as mahogany.
I have a beautiful pool furniture set made from Ipe. Wears like steel. I wonder if someone has done wine racking using it?
My racking is pine and is no showplace, but totally functional. I have no worries of wood failure or mold.
If not for optic/cosmetic reasons I´d take what is cheapest. It really doesn´t matter. The wine would care.
My (self-constructed) racks are from cheap spruce - and work for 27 years without any problems.
I agree. You’re not going to spend hours in there looking at racks are you? Its purely for function, so just get the least expensive.
As to mahogany, it’s true that a lot of what is sold as mahogany is not really mahogany. However, that doesn’t mean it’s bad for racking. Most of the tropical hardwoods are very disease resistant and quite hard. Most also tend to split and splinter more easily than softwoods like the various pines. If you can, find out where your wood is from. They’re doing a lot of illegal logging all over the world and if there’s any way to avoid supporting that, I would.
If sunlight were involved, then, over time, the pine would cure to look overwhelmingly better than redwood or mahogany.
But I’m not sure how pine would cure in total darkness.
[Old sun-stained yellow pine (Pinus palustris???) is far & away the most beautiful wood I’ve ever seen, especially if it has lots of knots in it, although be forewarned that many finishes nowadays offer 100% UV protection, so your sunlit pine won’t be able to cure properly and turn gorgeous.]
As far as pungency is concerned, the redwood & pine will produce strong [possibly offensive] odors, but [in my very limited experience] mahogany is larger odorless.
Not sure how true any of that is. The first is solely personal aesthetics. To me, all woods are beautiful, just different. And the knottier the wood, the worse it is to work with, although it can look nice. For racks, you want fewer knots, not more knots.
I’m not aware of any finish that offers 100% UV protection. Many woods, especially tropical woods, change in response to oxygen and light and if they are going to do so, they’re doing so regardless of finish. What does happen is that some of the oil-based finishes become yellow themselves, so if you put that on white pine, that wood is going to turn golden-orange. The old varnishes and shellacs can eventually become dark brown. Some of the water-based finishes tend to yellow less, so if you want the “natural” color of the wood, use those, but some of them give a blue kind of shading. There are some super-hard aluminum-based finishes that tend to do that.
Properly cured white pine will not produce any offensive odors, especially if you’re not cutting and working with it, which you won’t be once the shelves are in place. And even if it did, that is not going to affect the wine. The main reason for sealing the wood is to make it easier to clean in the event of a spill. Any wood mentioned in this thread, plus many more, are going to look good. But think about it. If you make individual slots, the only things you’ll see are the standards in front and the ends of the rails. So it becomes more or less irrelevant. You can even paint them if you want a nice color, in which case it doesn’t matter what wood you use. You can even use exterior plywood, which is usually cheap pine. It is probably what is on your roof. Unless you’re going to spend time showing off your cellar, which is a bit like forcing people to look at pictures of your kids or grandkids, just go with what is most economical.
I completely agree that choosing a wood for wine racking should be pragmatic in the extreme; I love mahogany but I wouldn’t use it in that application. And if UV protection in a wine cellar is a concern then the effect on your racking is the least of your problems.
And today I learned something. Thanks for the explanation Frank!