I’ve accumulated quite a few half bottles (375mL) of stickies and other wines that don’t fit well in any of my storage options, so I’m looking for wood crate in which to place them. Please let me know if you happen to have something with which you’d be willing to part, and what you’d like for it – I’m more than willing to pay for shipping, and perhaps some nominal amount for the box. Trades also a possibility. Thanks!
argh, i just threw one away with the owc top too for d’yquem not even three days ago. It was sitting in my trunk for the last year holding pens. =(
Whoa! Talk about bad timing. I’ve been thinking about posting this for weeks, too!
hard to believe you can’t just walk into MacArthur’s and walk out with several of them . . .
alan
It’s not that easy. Boxes for half bottles are much rarer than for 750s. Most stores seem to treat either like gold (charging for them or only giving them to you with a large purchase) or they treat them like trash (or kindling). The 2nd one is really weird to me. Maybe these are just boxes to the store, but I’m quite sure there are enough customers out there who value them. Why not open them carefully and save them for such customers?
I was looking for Yquem OWCs for halves for a while and found it difficult to find (unless you’re actually buying cases of Yquem, in which case retailers are happy to give you the cases…). I eventually managed to scrape together 2-3 of them. It’s much easier to find non-Yquem cases.
Keep in mind that Yquem cases store 12 halves in 2 rows of 6 while most other cases store 24 halves in three rows of 8. Also, half bottles can be different sizes. Yquem made their bottles slightly longer in ~2003 which makes them difficult to put in cases from before 2003. (I still haven’t managed to track down a post-2003 OWC). Many other chateaux also use longer bottles. For sauternes this includes guiraud, doisy daene, possibly doisy vedrines.
I think your best bet may be to make friends with your LWS employee and have them keep an eye out for you. It took me months to a year or so to find a few cases, but I also wasn’t willing to pay for them. If you’re willing to pay for shipping and a nominal cost, then you may have an easier time.
Thanks for all of the helpful information. Are the post-2003 Yquem bottles now the same size as the other Sauternes producers you list? Would the cases that hold the longer bottles be able to accomodate the shorter as well (I assume the opposite is surely not true). Frankly, the name on the box doesn’t matter to me since it’s for storage, not display. I have a mix of pre- and post-2003 Yquem halves to store, as well as a few random bottles of Climens, Guiraud and D-D. A 24-bottle box would be ideal.
I think the post-2003 Yquem bottles are not quite as long as some other producers, so post-2003 Yquem boxes may still not fit those. I know that Doisy Daene doesn’t fit in any wooden cases for half bottles that I’ve found. (Obviously, I’ve never tracked down a Doisy Daene case.)