apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

we picked up the VURM at ikea a couple weekends ago. we just haven't found a place to put it yet. It takes 4 screws to hold it up, and since we rent, we're trying to find a good, non odd looking place to put it, which i think is hard for anything that sticks out of the wall.

A friend of mine has one of the cast iron ones that's kinda scrolly looking and hangs from the ceiling. It's very pretty but she does not enjoy all the mopping she's had to do...bottles fall out of it all the time. Crash!

Just a few days ago I posted a list of 10 wine racks.

Wine is destroyed by light and heat. These cute racks might be fine if you want a place to store your Boone's Farm, but please don't use them for good wine, you'll ruin the wines.

If you're in a small apartment, just put the cases of wine in the bottom interior corner of a closet. Someplace where there will be little temperature variation, and little light.

If you must have a cute display, pick something that only holds a small number of bottles, and be sure to drink whatever you display in a week or three.

How many times does a bottle of wine have to crash to the floor before you think, "Hmmm, scrolly rack, not so good for storage."?

mrmanses--
The bottom interior corner of a closet? Oh, you mean in that vacant pristine closet we all have in our NY studios? I was WONDERING what to fill that space with! :P

And granted no one is espousing storing wines on the Sahara, but aren't the tinted glass of wine bottles designed to minimize light damage? And how fast, exactly, does that even happen?

(Posting comment to force another comment to disappear.)

We received the wine tube as a gift a couple of years ago and it is the single item *everyone* comments on in our apartment. It's nice that it doubles as a wall sculpture. It looks way more precarious than it actually is - we've never had any wine fall out. Because the bottles are exposed to light, we just have a few table wines in it and keep the good stuff in a cupboard.

My favorite wine rack is the Wine Spine by Delia. I own one and get comments on it every time someone new sees my home.

I have been searching for a modern (non-frilly, non-ugly, non-wood) wine rack for some time. Thanks so much for this list!! The Umbra CRU wine rack is perfect!!!

"Wine is destroyed by light and heat."

When I lived in NYC, I was on the top floor so the temp in the summer got really bad. I talked with Chuck Ortman, then the wine maker of Meridian, at a wine tasting fundraiser in LA, who said to keep it in the fridge. Yeah, it's colder than what's ideal, but the temperature change was the real problem. He's one who's taught a lot of other vintners, so I'm sticking with his advice.

Now that I am back in So Cal near the great temp moderator known as the Pacific Ocean, I keep my wine in an interior closet, in a styrofoam case that frozen food came in. Styrofoam is adiabatic--from when I was in college this won the engineering test for keeping coffee hottest longest (my engineer boyfriend had a class that tested this with a lid). I don't love styrofoam, but at least my fine wines are protected.

And now I don't have 3 cases of wine in my fridge...nor do I need to go through crazy stuff to get my California wine fix.

I was told that a bottle should be stored on its side with the cork end tilted slightly upward. Does anyone know about this?
Most wine racks that I've seen are designed to hold bottles completely flat or with the cork end tilted downward.

tilted down because the wine keeps the cork moist and if it dries out, when you go to unscrew the cork, all the little cork bits fall down into the wine.

don't buy those Ikea VURM racks. the holes are too narrow to fit wider bottles wine like burgundy. i've found about 1/3 to 1/2 of the bottles i buy won't fit.

We ended up getting a Winescape in dark walnut. It's basically the wood version of the wine tube. Metal or acrylic was just too commercial/euro looking for what we have. Wood understandably costs more but man is it fine looking.

All of these types of wine racks are really for display and steady consumption. Bottles that are candidates for storing are just that, they're stored. If you're keeping a bottle so long that it makes a difference where the cork is pointed then it needs special attention. Most of the light that hits a wine bottle happens before you buy it unless you keep it in the kitchen window. Some cheese connoiseurs might freak out at how we store that product. Ok, but the cheese and the wine here isn't being "stored".