Wine storage cabinets?

WINE TALK
1

Apologies in advance if this has been covered though I couldn’t find much in searching…

Needs:
300 bottles or so
No “furniture” as this will go in our steady temperature basement where function trumps fashion
Large format bottle storage unimportant

Recommendations?

2

make your own?

(10 feet of racks holding about 600 bottles, cost less than US$200 lumber, constructed without drawings, one shelf at a time and screwed together in situ.

3

[quote=“SteveG”]make your own?
The basement is pretty temp steady but it still gets up to the mid 70s during the summer heat waves so I’m looking for a refrigerated unit.

Like the racks though! (I tell my SO that all the time)

4

Vinotemps are the classic “I just need an insulated, active cooled, wine cabinet that’s a box” It’s what I have. There’s a couple of other brands like that. Or, do what Steve suggests if the basement is passively cool enough.

5

Check out Vinoteque`s website for deals which relate to orders not fulfilled, refurbished and/ or expired inventory. Good luck getting their office to communicate promptly and follow through, however.

6

Second this… I got the 600E with all burgundy racking… it was a floor model… and was about $500 off the usual price… it had a heavy duty cooling unit… and has been in the garage in SoCal for about 4 years

7

I got a 400E from these guys about eight years ago. They were easy to deal with at the time, I’m not sure if that’s still the case. Either way, they’re cheaper than the vinotemp website for what looks to be the same product.

8

I bought a vinotemp through Costco the first one was damaged in shipment; it was nice to have Costco to deal with after hearing less than glowing reviews on VT service. My current unit functions great. But I would only use a cabinet if I had no other options; storage of mags is very limited and forget wanting to own anything larger anything not in a cab bottle will cause problems. Try to use part of the basement; you will be better served in the long run.
Tom Hill has a blog worth seeking out on the issues he overcame (collapsing shelf’s)

got home and I could not find Tom Hill’s blog. You could pm him, I believe he had the aluminum and wood racks that collapsed he had to upgrade to redwood lost 20% of storage capacity.

9

My recommendation and comment was for Vinoteque, not Vinotemp, an entirely different animal:

http://vinotheque.com/store/clearance.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

10

The other option is to simply enclose part of the basement and actively cool it. Heck, if you want, you could simply put a portable AC unit in it. No, it won’t be 55, more like 65, but if the basement’s in the 50s naturally for the rest of the year and you just need 2-3 months of cooling, frame off a part of the basement and put an inexpensive AC unit there.

11

Paul Galli has detailed his method of inexpensively modifying a window AC so that it cools to 55, and it’s easy to reverse if the unit needs to go in for service and you’re worried about your warranty (“no modifications”, etc.)

12

Thanks guys. I’m actually a pretty good carpenter and enclosing part of the basement could be done pretty cheaply. One problem; it would not be by a window. I seem to remember when doing past research that there are units that don’t need outside access.

13

I did find a nice discussion at this place called, of all things, Wine Berserkers:

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