The Auswine Forum

G'day Folks,

So I thinking that it might be an advantage to deck out part (or entire) of our cellar with home made wire mesh wine racks.

You know the type that utilises 2 sheets gal wire mesh (full of squares) that are spaced appropriately and bolted to the wall.

Why....because they are cheaper (I would assume) than off the shelf options that can be horrendously expensive. And due to the nature of the racking would be space effective (fit more bottles per square m etc).

So what I want to know is

- Have you done this?

- How did you build it?

- How much did it cost??

- Can I make free standing versions???

I was thinking of decking out the walls and then a two sided row up the middle (if it will fit). I could however use my current timber racking down the center as it would freestand easily.

Cheers, Brett

Brett

Gavin Trott.

I'll let others jump in here with more experience than me.

I will add one really important rider from my own past experience.

They work really well, and are very cost efficient.

but

If the spacing between struts/supports is at all distant, you will definitely need clips of some sort between the two sheets of weld mesh, front and back, to hold them equi distant from each other.

Otherwise, the two sheets can flex ... apart .... the front sheet frontwards and the back sheet backwards ... and the bottles contained within tend to fall, downwards, and inwards!!!

Don't ask how I know this, it was a messy, and slightly expensive experience!

I have some similar racking in parts of my cellar but I bought it pre painted and with the wooden bits that hold it together. they weren't very expensive though. Might have been $182 each and they hold 162 bottles I think (9 wide* 18 tall).

Without going down and looking, I think they came with six wooden spacers, two for the botom and to sit on, two for the middle and two for the top. They each have two sort of slices cut into them and you put the spacers on the inside of the racks with the "slices" facing out. It's a bit hard to explain without a diagram. There are also steel brackets to attach the wooden bits to the wall so the whole thing becomes quite solid and unable to move.

The only other thing to bear in mind is that champagne, burgundy and obviously magnums won't fit in but I guess it depends how big your holes are. I use mine for riesling and mostly cabs - ar at least reds in cab like bottles. I would suggest at least one other dozen bin style rack to hold all the bottles that are a pain in the ar$e. Seppelt bottles in particular are like this. And of course most champagne.

Brett

Although I don't have the wire mesh myself, if I started over again I probably would go for it, due to the space economy. However, apart from the structural support side of the equation (and I assume you need some reinforcement top and botton, and possibly middle, to keep the two sheets parallel), I would also consider the following questions:

1. Different shaped bottles may require larger gauge mesh. For example, most decent chardonnay is supplied in a wider-based bottle (is it a 'burgundy' shape?) with the other extreme being riesling bottles.

2. Champagne and sparling wines might need a tad larger.

3. Where do you store your magnums?

Depending on your collection, and how it's likely to evolve, you might try a combination of sizes and/or solutions to meet your needs. Jeez, I'm starting to sound like a consultant here - I'm not

Thanks for the feedback so far guys.

On the note of "odd shaped bottles" (magnums, champagnes etc), I am planning to not fill the whole cellar with the new racks. This would leave some small percentage of the space for these awkward bottles.

Compared to the volume of the cellar the amount of "odd" bottles is pretty scarce to be honest.

Concrete re-inforcing mesh? Don't know what sizes it comes in but it's much bigger gauge than what you seem to be considering - I wouldn't entrust some(few) of the wines I have to chook, chook, chook, here chook, here chook chook chook wire. Think it's only mild steel but should have no trouble with panels holding a couple of dozen bottles. You could even prep, prime and tupack it with your favourite wine colour yourself (perhaps with some help from your local decorator centre). Ensuring it was solidly fixed shouldn't involve neuro-surgery or rocket science though it may require some blockhead wood bits.

Good Luck!

daz

Might be able to give you some ideas...

http://www.wine-cellar-racks.com.au/

http://www.adwestwire.com.au/Wine%20Racks.htm

Had a friend make my racks this way for 1200 bottles...cost about $500.
But he made them too wide which resulted in what I like to call a wine cascade.....10 dozen vat 47's falling out at the same time
Only lost 10 bad a sad day never the less...I tied each bottle to the racking after that.
6 months ago removed them all and got racking from cellarwine (not without little problems but that's another story).

Graham

Also had a minor cascade from not having the mesh securely tensioned. Fixed with turnbuckles with hooks. Do not underestimate the pressure 300 bottles of wine will put in an outward direction. Having said that it is a great system costing around $300 per 400 bottles in materials.

My wire ones look like this:

http://www.vintagecellars.com.au/script ... part=12726

I have two of them and they look quite good filled. One if full of riesling and the other full of reds. In the picture you can see one of the wooden connectors in the bottom left hand corner above the first column of six bottles. Seems it's 8 bottles wide, not 9 like I though but these work out prettycloser to $1 a bottle for storage, which is pretty good.

I also have three of these which look quite nice when filled and all together. I use these for the more irregular shaped wines.

http://www.vintagecellars.com.au/script ... part=12734

And then I have one of these tasting tables in the middle of the cellar but in pine, not redwood, which is a little cheaper. And of course you can hardly see it as it's stacked to the ceiling with cases of wine on top of it. It's full of mostly premium bottles. It seems safer somehow.

http://www.vintagecellars.com.au/script ... part=19148

And then there's a few old government bookcases with six packs and full cases shoved in and a big old industrial antique bookcase which stores all my stickies and sparklers, plus a few cases on the floor. It's a bit of a mish mash really.

PS. Sorry for the VC links but that's where I bought them and they have the pictures. Not trying to push any business their way and they just resell these racks anyway. you may be able to find them elsewhere with the correct product names.

Hi Brett

Yes I have made them successful and they have been going without a hitch for 6 or so years.

I cut the mesh every second wire stuck out, then drilled holes through plywood sheets at the distance the wires are apart, push the sticking through wire through hole in plywood and hammer over. Means the wires of the mesh tie themselves to the ply.

I have plywood on all four sides for strength, the plywood sides are screwed together where they meet.
Each piece of ply is about 300 mm wide, 80 mm at back before first sheet of mesh then 120 or 130 mm before 2nd sheet of mesh, then about 100 m at the front. (WARNING: these measurements are from memory - check on a rack already made up)

I have just used tie wire on the larger racks to stop separation, three or four loops in about 4 spots. Used 12mm ply, galvanised mesh (touched up with zinc based paint where it was cut). The mesh came from Metal Mart - was cheaper and came in larger size than Bunnings. The 100mm mesh fits most burgundy bottles but not the larger and squatter sparkling bottles.

Hope that make sense
Cheers

One entire wall of my cellar has this sort of racking as when we built our cellar I found it to be the most economical.

Attaching it to a wall is easier than free-standing. Mine is supported by 3 timber frames that are bolted to the wall at the top, middle and bottom of the rack. It is basically just a length of timber with the supports bolted to it at the right intervals and then dyna-bolted to the wall. The mesh then fits over this and is attached by screw on brackets. You might be able to work it out from the picture. You can see some of the timber support, particularly where the S10 label is.

I too found that there was a bit too much flex in the middle and simply attached some heavy-duty zip-ties between the 2 layers at regular intervals.

I also use small zip-ties on some of the bottles that are prone to slipping – Burgundy and Rhone bottles are more prone to this. Just zip-tie the neck to the mesh.

As stated, some sparkling bottles fit and some don’t. You can store half bottles in the rack if you cut a small flat piece of timber to the right length, sit the timber in the rack and the half bottle on the timber. I had some leftover skirting board that even had a 1 inch wide groove for the bottle to fit in.

My racking does not go all the way to the roof so I use this space for some Magnums and boxes. I also have shelving on the opposite wall for whole cartons, half bottles, sparklies, and magnums (I have about 60) as well as glasses, decanters, jams and preserves and even ageing my wife’s home-made cheese.

Hi brett, tried to get a couple of pics up on this post but had no luck. (I think I need to use something called ftp with my service provider. If anyone knows an easy way to get images on a reply using the protocols explained in the help section of the forum board please let me know.)

What started this was the mesh method wine rack built 10 years ago and with no problems. This simply involved going to my local steel merchant giving them dimensions and they cut /supplied, square steel tubing. plastic corners for joining lengths of steel, mesh of suitable size (not magnums nor bubbly in my case) and clips and self tapping screws that can be installed with a cordless drill.

The rack was shaped like a paperbacknovel with the mesh where the covers are and with a frame made up of the tubing. The steel tubing slides into the plastic corners and a teck screw used to make sure it can't slide apart again. The clips, attached with the screws hold the mesh in place and the whole rack was spaced a few centimeters away from the wall to which it was attached using some angle brackets.

Its in the coolest part of the house and has a thermometer attached so I can see how the temp. is going. I am not the handy man type but never the less I did it in a few hours and am pleased with how it works Hope this helps regards chris

ck's pics