Does Storing Wine in a Rack Matter?
So, you went shopping and stocked up on bottles. You stopped into your favorite winery, and picked up souvenirs to bring home. Your friends brought over Barolo or bubbles and the bottles are piling up. How do you keep track of it all? A wine rack.
Wine racks aren’t just for serious collectors who have invested in a wine cave. Anyone who keeps bottles around, even just just for a couple of months, should use a rack to ensure the bottles are properly stored.
That said, the type of wine rack you need will depend on your taste and space. Do you have a penchant for aged prosecco and Champagne? An increasingly extensive collection of Napa Cabernet? A budding interest in orange wine?
We asked season wine pros how to pick out a perfect wine rack for your space.
Why Should You Rack Wine?
While the concept is simple—a storage space for wine—wine racks offer a number of benefits.
They make it easy to organize collections and help amplify the wine’s potential: storing a wine correctly, and on its side, will help prolong a bottle’s life. When aging a wine, consistency is key, and a wine rack supports bottles and ensures they’re sitting well.
Jordan Goldberg, who runs sales and marketing at Eleven Eleven Winery in the Napa Valley, notes that wine racks are space-saving and aid in more precise aging.
“Wine racks ensure bottles are stored horizontally to keep corks moist, and offer easy access to your collection,” he says. “Additionally, they offer an aesthetically pleasing way to organize and showcase your prized wines.”
Even people who are just starting to collect wine can benefit from a rack. Carolyn Lassen, who runs the wine program at Husk Nashville, says she started out with a small, six-bottle countertop rack and scaled up from there as her needs grew.
If you’re unsure about needing a wine rack, consider Lassen’s approach and opt for an entry-level six-bottle rack. Store it in your kitchen or a closet where you have space.
If you have dozens (or hundreds) of bottles, you’ll obviously need something larger. Regardless of where it’ll go in your home, a wine rack will save space and can help organize and categorize your selection.
The Case for Superior Storage
The lifespan of your bottle will depend greatly on how you store your wines. Storing bottles sideways in a temperature-controlled location and your wine has decades in front of it. Stored upright in the light and, well, your wine may not taste so great when you finally pop the cork.
Marshall Tilden III, the chief revenue and education officer of Wine Enthusiast, finds that wine racks “allow your bottles to rest peacefully in one position, so they are not rolling or moving around,” he says. “Wine likes to be still, and wine racks can protect wine from any kind of vibration that can cause sediment to shuffle around.”
Finding Your Perfect Wine Rack
Wine racks can vary in size and solution. There are behemoth racks meant to store hundreds of hyper-organized bottles, and there are small racks designated specifically for Champagne. There are design-forward racks and utilitarian crafted for extensive collections.
“It all depends on your collection,” says Peter Donkonics, the beverage director at The Foundry Rooftop. “If you are having everyday wine, then I would go with a simple wine rack that can be stored in your kitchen area, the rack could be on the floor or even on your kitchen counter—-these wines are consumed daily, so they don’t need to be cellared.”
“I recommend a rack that has adjustable shelves so you can store bottles of any size,” says Lassen. “I personally group my bottles by region, which makes it easy to grab something depending on my mood.”
If you’re looking for an all-purpose rack, Tilden recommends you look for “wine racks that can fit up to Champagne-size bottles if you know you are going to collect wines from all over the world, as many bottles come in bigger 750 mL sizes these days.”
Other Factors to Consider when Shopping for a Wine Rack
When picking out a wine rack, Goldberg recommends considering the amount of space in your place, along with the size of your current collection and potential depletion and growth.
“Where you place the rack is of the utmost importance,” says Goldberg. “Temperature and light exposure can affect your wine’s aging process. It’s best to have the wine rack located in a space that isn’t exposed to direct sunlight.”
Once you do have your wine rack, keep it organized.
“I begin by categorizing wine by type—red, white and sparkling—or region,” says Goldberg. “For larger collections, further categorize by varietal or country.” You can label shelves the old fashioned way, or use an app like CellarTracker or InVintory to help locate specific bottles.
“I’ve seen collectors utilize a color-coded sticker system to manage their wine inventory: green stickers indicate wines that are ‘ready to enjoy,’ yellow stickers signal that the wine is ‘nearing the time to be enjoyed’ and red stickers denote wines that need ‘more aging’ and should not be touched yet,” Goldberg continues. “Rotate your stock periodically to ensure older wines are consumed at their prime and do not overage.”
More Wine Storage Coverage
- Do scratched labels on a bottle of wine matter? We asked the experts.
- Get to know the five enemies of wine and how to protect your collection from them.
- Here’s when and when not to use a wall-mounted wine rack.
- What’s the difference between wine fridges and wine coolers?
- Read our beginner’s guide to basement wine cellars.
- How to properly store wine—and why it matters.
From the Shop
The Best Wine Racks
Organize and display your wine in style with our selection of decorative wine racks to suit your space and collection, including wine jails, hanging wine racks, modular racks to mix-and-match and professional-grade wine cellar racking systems.
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