Wine Rack Buying 101

Wine is a huge part of many lives, parties, and a favorite collector's hobby. You can see the growing trend just by walking around almost any medium to large city and you will pass more and more wine shops. Home wine storage has seen similar steady growth. Once bottled, wine continues to mature, so proper storage is essential to help it do so gracefully. So, if you too are thinking about what to consider when selecting a wine rack or wine cabinet, the following should help you better understand your wine rack options.

Wine Rack Buying Tips

Wine racks come in a huge array of materials (wood, metal, glass, etc.) and styles (wall mounted, counter top, corner racks, diamond bins, cabinets, bookend style, etc.). Do a full review of your options, as your wine rack should last a lifetime.

There are four key elements of wine storage: temperature, humidity, light, and the storage units themselves. Another way to look at this is the adversaries of wine are heat, light, dryness, and movement/vibration.

Smaller self-contained cabinets often look like little refrigerators, are excellent at providing the conditions of true wine cellars: steady cool temperatures, set humidity, and limited light.

Keeping the correct humidity or appropriately moist environment will keep the wine cork damp, reducing the chances of contamination and/or oxidization.

Warm conditions will accelerate wine aging.

Understand the difference between total bottle capacity and racked bottle capacity. Total bottle capacity can have bottles resting on other bottles.

Avoid placing a wine rack on top of the refrigerator due to the heat that the refrigerator generates.

A wine cellar is great but not necessary to store your wine in the correct environment.

Light or more specifically ultraviolet light can effect and even damage wine, therefore make sure it is stored in a dark place.

Wine bottles are stored sideways to ensure that the wine stays in contact with the cork and keeps it moist.

Make sure you find out the size capacity of the wine rack openings inside the wine cabinet or wine rack. Some will allow larger bottles and others will not.

You need a wine rack system that helps maintain the correct temperature and humidity if you are going to store your wines for a lengthy period of time. A nice environment is a temperature range of 55-60° F and humidity in the 50% to 75% range. These vary with the type of wine.

Understand the surface smoothness of the wine rack or wine cabinet that the bottles will be pulled in and out of, as some may scratch bottles and tear or markup labels.

Be sure to keep wine racks away from windows, ovens, TVs, or any heating element.

While buying off the shelf is easier and cheaper, you can purchase wine racks custom-made to fit your specific space from specialty shops.

Contributor: Rafael Reynolds, Flushing NY

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