The Wine Cellar

Heres what is going on lately. From left to right is 3g Mulberry/Marionberry, in back of that is a 5g Chilean grapes blend of Zin/Cab, back is 6g of Banana/Pineapple Voignier, in front is 6g Crab apple with a small bottle of top up next to that that looks like Pepto, 2 6g's of Raspberry in the back and then 3 gallons of Dandelion on the extreme right.

Nice looking wine cellar. Its always nice to see lots of goodies. Watcha got in bottles?

EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Very cool! Did you custom make those racks for the wine?

Yes, thats all scraps of wood from work for free. I build custom stairs and those are rippings from solid white oak.

That is absolutely beautiful! Wow- that's impressive.

I see that you label and add the shrink wraps to all the bottles while cellaring. I think it's gorgeous!

What wines do you make most often?

I make mostly fruit wines with a few kits per year thrown in. I make mostly reds- and even make my chokecherry into a "big" red and oak it. The only whites I make are crabapple, apple, rhubarb, and dandelion.

What's you're cellaring time on your wines?

Yes, Very impressive Wade.

Your racks look like just what I am looking for for my basement. Couple of questions: You say you use oak. It looks like just cross bars and braces. Has there been any issues with sagging under full load? What are the dimensions of the individual pieces of wood? 2X2? 1X2? Do you put anything on the crossbars to stabilize the bottles? It looks like a piece of felt on one of the bars. Ever have any issues with a bottle slipping down to the row underneath?

[drool!] ...amazing cellar... beautiful labeling

Very nice, Wade! So neat and organized.

Wow, that is a superb wine cellar.

I also make mainly fruit wines with some high nd red wine kits thrown in(grape skin kits) but now have a press so will be making from grapes and already have one batch under my belt bulk aging which is a Chilean blend of 40% Cab/60% Zin. I always heva a few Melomels on hand and some Black Currant wine as its my favorite and also has won a few #1 best fruit wines here in Ct followed by my Blackberry. As far as the racks go they are 1 1/16" X 1 1/2" and the longest span is 54" with the magnums on it over my bottled area and there is no sag at all. You do see a felt stopper or 2 as I ran out of the small clear door bumpers that are everywhere else and cant be seen. The place I used to get them from closed down so now I have to E order them. I built these in place with a laser though so its very level. I had to do that as the area that this room is in was a very unlevel floor even though I poured self leveling cement in that area but it would have had to been about 1 1/2" thick to fix it all and its just the edges near the walls under the racks that arent level but really made it a PITA to build. I am the main administrator now for this sites sister site http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/.

I love the wine racks, any chance that you have plans of how you put those together?

Sorry I really didnt use any plans. I took what I had available and then measured the typical burgundy bottle and gave it just a little more room then that height wise. Each Rung is screwed from behind like 2 separate racks and then assembled by screwing a few side pces to keep them stable and square. I could have done a much more elaborate job but was also in the middle of building a huge deck on the house and had to sneak this in between downtime while it was raining. I think each rack has about 5 1/2" spacing. Make sure to use deck screws to assemble and not just sheetrock screws as they dont have the tensile strenght not to mention they snap alot even when pre-drilled.

Wade E said:

As far as the racks go they are 1 1/16" X 1 1/2" and the longest span is 54" with the magnums on it over my bottled area and there is no sag at all. You do see a felt stopper or 2 as I ran out of the small clear door bumpers that are everywhere else and cant be seen. The place I used to get them from closed down so now I have to E order them. I built these in place with a laser though so its very level. I had to do that as the area that this room is in was a very unlevel floor even though I poured self leveling cement in that area but it would have had to been about 1 1/2" thick to fix it all and its just the edges near the walls under the racks that arent level but really made it a PITA to build. I am the main administrator now for this sites sister site http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/.

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My site is very unlevel as well. When I was building my fridge I figured the sheer heft of the 4X8 X5'H framed space would stay true and square but I discovered that it had canted a 1/4" when I went to hang the doors. D'oh! Took some serious torque and shimming to correct for that.

I will definitely account for that during the rack build. I love your simple design. Every other rack I had seen had staves in place to frame each and every bottle and made the whole project more trouble than it would have been worth. Your plan I can do on a time and $ budget.

By the way, I have been able to find those rubber feet at KMart. Don't know if you have one nearby. Do you use 2 or 4 per bottle? Can't see whether you have them in place for the necks.

Just in back so 2. Thanks and fast and decent was what i was looking for. At that time I also had a newborn and was working lots of hours. Now we cant get 1 minute of overtime and havent had any since last July which really sucks. Ive worked overtime every week almost all my life and stupidly based a budget on it and is really killing me now!

I love this design! It is simple yet great looking. I plan on copying it soon.

Thanks for posting
Storm