Wine rack construction ideas....

[Bill White]

Have any of you ever built wine racks?
I have a potential job requiring same.
Your thoughts, sites, dimensions, etc. would be appreciated.
The sites I've seen are elementary at best.
Bill

[Sam Murdoch]

Are you building racks to be part of some cabinetry or are you looking to build floor to ceiling types for a wine cellar? 20 bottles or 2,000?

[Harvey Melvin Richards]

This is a simple one that I made a while back. Only 2 parts. I made a baltic birch pattern, then routed it.

[Don Stephan]

One issue will be what wood to use. Because of the humidity in conditioned wine storage rooms, a more rot resistant wood is an advantage I think. But today's redwood lumber is half sapwood or more, and my understanding is that redwood sap has zero rot resistance. The rack I built years ago was based on a commercial design with I think 5/8" horizontal and vertical elements joined on a jig with brads. Milling the strips, routing slots, and assembling took a huge amount of time. Don't underestimate the time. Sorry, can't remember details of the design.

[Michael Dedon]

Here's what I did for an in-cabinet setup. Dowels are 3" on center and depth is 11". Notice a few bottles on the bottom rack slipped off the front rail. Next time I'll make the depth 10-1/2" or 10". Slides are standard epoxy euro style.

Wine Rack.jpg

[Peter Quinn]

Have any of you ever built wine racks?
I have a potential job requiring same.
Your thoughts, sites, dimensions, etc. would be appreciated.
The sites I've seen are elementary at best.
Bill

The design really depends on the volume of wine to be stored and the space in which it must fit. There are a few good books on the subject which give basic design ideas, minimum sizes for storing different sized bottles (Burgundy, bordeaux, riesling, 375Ml dessert or half bottles). There are lots of design options for stand alone cabinets and racks. Things get a bit more specific if you are trying to store a large volume of wine in a small space, and more specific if the space is to be conditioned. So I guess we need more details to offer more suggestions.

I worked up a basic 48 bottle rack that uses minimum materials, holds a maximum amount of wine in a minimal area. It can be stacked to scale as necessary. Not as quick to build as I'd hoped, it holds everything from desert wine bottles to Bordeaux, but not the largest sized burgundy bottles. I found it was a choice between 375's and burgundy bottles, if the bigger bottle fit, the smaller bottles fall through the gaps, or you have to increase the the size for the horizontal bars. It was based on minimum opening dimensions from a chart I found on a wine cellar site and a basic construction guide in a wine cellar book. Its quite simple, the bottles you wish to store must fit in the holes.