Wine Rack

[bthorne]

One thing the extra-large snow storms in Virginia this winter enabled me to do was to get some shop time to finish this wine rack. This was a Christmas gift for my in-laws. I had made a similar one for myself a few years ago, and used the things I learned from its construction to improve on it for this model.

I finally found a good wood supplier in my area, so this was the first project I have taken from rough lumber to a finished product. It is made of white oak, with a beautiful piece of quartersawn oak for the top. It has six pairs of rails with seven spaces for bottles on each rail. My original rack had the rails spaced perfectly for 750 mL bottles, but half bottles (often dessert wines) had a tendency to slip through. For this rack I brought the top rear rail forward an inch or two so that the top rack fits half bottles quite well.

The 30 inch snow storm that we had in December gave me the time to surface all the wood, cut all parts to size, and cut the holes for the wine bottles, and glue up the sides. Pictures were taken, and the in-laws received photos of the cut parts with a couple bottles of wine on Christmas day.



The 26 inches of snow we got later this winter again kept me away from the office for a few days, which gave me time to finish everything up - cut the mortises and tenons, ease all the sharp edges, sand everything, glue up and finish. The finish is a couple coats of shellac followed by wiping varnish. It turned out absolutely beautiful, and much better looking than my original. I actually had a bit of a hard time giving it up.



Finished wine rack hanging out with LOML's quilting supplies.



A close-up of the grain on the top.



The rack in use in its intended habitat, my in-laws' library.

Comments and criticisms are welcomed. Finishing this cleared my plate of projects enough to start on a renovation of my shop. I'll post on that in a different thread.

[JR]

Nicely done! That top is a thing of beauty.

JR

[pelligrini]

Looks very good. Your in-laws should be very pleased.

One thing that might help it a bit is a base. Maybe 3" or so. It would block the view of the carpet below and especially get the lower bottles a little further off the floor. I only say that because a friend of my folks had a metal one with the lower bottles close to the floor. The neck of a bottle of red wine got broken off during vacuming. They put a rug under it until they repleaced the carpet.

[bthorne]

Looks very good. Your in-laws should be very pleased.

They are - they'd been after me to make them one since they saw my original about five years ago. Just didn't have access to the tools or time to do it until this year.

One thing that might help it a bit is a base. Maybe 3" or so. It would block the view of the carpet below and especially get the lower bottles a little further off the floor. I only say that because a friend of my folks had a metal one with the lower bottles close to the floor. The neck of a bottle of red wine got broken off during vacuming. They put a rug under it until they repleaced the carpet.

Great idea! I had thought about doing some sort of legs on the side panels - probably would make it a bit more resistant to slightly uneven floors, but I couldn't figure out exactly what to do (also didn't trust my jigsaw not to ruin the piece somehow). Believe it or not, the bottom rails are raised an inch or two from my prototype. Adding a low base would solve both issues - would make it much easier to add feet, since the base could have either a slight scroll with simple and elegant feet or be nearly flat to the carpet with hidden levelers underneath. I like that. I will keep that idea in mind if / when I do another one.

[pecker]

Years ago I made several racks in a similar style, but much larger, for storing our wines in the cellar. The main difference was I made them so that the cork end pointed toward the back. It made sense to me that you would want to be able to read the label.

On yours, the label appears upside down. I don't know if there's a preferred or traditional way to do this, but I've seen them both ways.

[bthorne]

Years ago I made several racks in a similar style, but much larger, for storing our wines in the cellar. The main difference was I made them so that the cork end pointed toward the back. It made sense to me that you would want to be able to read the label.

On yours, the label appears upside down. I don't know if there's a preferred or traditional way to do this, but I've seen them both ways.

I've seen them both ways as well, but I think if the bottles are going to be stored in a place where they are seen, this way is more pleasing to my eye. There isn't necessarily a front and a back to this rack, as both sides are finished nicely and the top has the same profile on all four edges. It's meant more as a display piece than for serious wine storage - for that it would be preferable to have a temperature and humidity controlled space (probably out of sight in a basement or cellar as you have). I think the only tradition here is to store it on its side to prevent the cork from drying out and shrinking, and both directions do that.

As for reading the labels, I've never had a problem reading labels with the necks pointing at the room - the vertical spacing between the rails is enough to see the labels, and I don't keep enough wine around to forget where I put it. Since I don't have the best environment for aging the wine, I usually buy wines that are meant to be consumed within a year or two.

[lrogers]

Very nice. Is that an original design?

[bthorne]

Very nice. Is that an original design?

Yes - When I designed my first one I spent a long time looking for photos and plans on google and couldn't find anything I really liked. The only thing I used was a tip on construction of the rails from a small 6 bottle design: use a hole saw to drill in the middle of a wider board and then rip down the middle for two identical rails. From there I drew out what I wanted, worked out the dimensions on paper and from some tests with wine bottles and built mine out of s4s pine from Lowes.

For this one, I measured off the original and changed some dimensions / construction details to fix a few things I didn't like, and then modified some more things while building to best fit the wood I had available.

[Pappy]

Nice piece, Bryan. The QS White Oak top has some great fleck patterns in it.

If you work with White Oak a lot, try ammonia fuming sometime. The fumes react with the tannins in the wood and creates a patina like natural aging.

[SHADOWFOX]

Nicely done, Bryan!

I'll add this to the long list of items I'd like to someday make for us. Thanks for sharing!

[PhilofKayDu]

Sweet! Thanks for sharing. Phil