01 Mar Why It’s Important To Keep Wine Bottle Sizes In View While Designing A Wine Cellar
While planning a wine cellar, ironically, one often overlooked aspect are the wine bottles themselves. As everyone knows, wine bottles are available in a number of different shapes and sizes. While the 750 ml are the most common, splits are 1/4th of the standard size.
Aside from this, you get magnums which are double the size of normal bottles and Jeroboams which are equivalent to 4 bottles. But that’s not where the size variations end. Methuselahs are equivalent to 8 bottles. Since there are so many different sizes available, it becomes necessary to take wine bottle sizes into account while designing a wine cellar.
Types Of Wine Bottles
Let’s take a closer look at the different types of bottles available. Having this information will help you make better design choices for your custom wine cellar:
- French wines like Bordeaux come in the standard 750ml format as do the New World wines which are based on Bordeaux grape variants.
- Red wines that are based on Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are generally available in dark green Bordeaux bottles.
- Dessert wines such as Sauternes and Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon-based white come in light-green/clear Bordeaux bottles.
- Various Italian wines such as Chianti or even Zinfandel and other Californian wines might use this particular bottle shape.
The good thing about these types of wine bottles is that they are extremely easy to store on wine racks. You don’t require bulk storage options, which helps you maximise your available storage capacity. It’s an extremely important aspect especially if you have a more compact custom wine cellar.
More About Wine Bottles…
- Burgundy wines such as Chardonnay (white) and Pinot Noir (red) come in dark green colour bottles that have a wide body and are slope-shouldered.
- New World wine producers of these particular grape varieties use the same bottle shape.
- Rhone (grape variety – Syrah) Loire Valley and other French wine-producing areas use similar bottles. But the Rhone bottle has a more severe slope than Burgundy bottles and isn’t quite as wide either.
- Typically, Bordeaux bottles are 3″ in diameter while the Burgundies come in bottles that have a diameter of 3.5″.
Most wine racks are designed for Bordeaux wine bottles, which can cause storage problems if you are storing Burgundy wines. If the latter is your wine preference, you need to make sure that your wine racks are customised accordingly.
Storing Champagne Bottles
Champagne wine bottles, Magnums, and Turley can be quite similar in appearance to the Burgundy bottles. Like the latter, they too are 3.5″ in diameter or more. However, they’re much heavier and thicker bottles and have wide indentations towards the base.
They are specifically designed to withstand very high pressure. Storing these bottles requires special attention as well and you’d need to include case bins, diamond bins or large format racks in your cellar design to accommodate them.
Wine Storage Pointers
Always keep your wines stored in wine racks which will keep the corks moist. Make sure your custom wine cellar has the right temperature and humidity control equipment installed and that there are no vibrations in that area. The space also needs to be free from paint finishes, wood species, and stains that can have strong odours.
We provide excellent custom wine cellar design and will take all your wine storage needs into consideration during the project. To find out about how Signature Cellars can help you design and build a wine storage solution that can help protect your investment and add value to your home, call us on 1300 570 636 or email info@signaturecellars.com.au
Thanks for reading,
Neil Smallman
Signature Cellars
1300 570 636
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