Elevate Your Dining Room Experience with Some Modern Wine Cellar Racking

Are you on the quest to feature your beloved wine collection using a modern wine cellar-racking design? Our partners at Coastal Custom Wine Cellars, headed by Steve Pantalemon, converted an empty closet in a home’s dining room into a deluxe, contemporary wine cellar using premium metal wine racks, glass elements, and well-polished hardwood. The client is an avid wine collector with a flair for design and wanted to focus on the wine cellar’s look instead of its capacity. Continue reading this article to learn more about this stunning wine cellar! 

Because of the home’s open floor plan, guests have uninterrupted views of this stunning wine cellar with awesome modern racking.

Conceptualizing Our Modern Wine Cellar Racking   

This client already worked with Steve and his team on a previous home project. Because the Coastal team’s expertise, professionalism, and sincerity were highly impeccable, the client decided to hire them again to conceptualize and custom-build his modern glass wine closet.     

Their client’s home was distinctly contemporary. It was built with cement, glass, and wooden materials combined to create a modern and restful atmosphere. The house’s ground floor had an open floor plan, which meant that everything from the dining area, kitchen, and living room was visible wherever you stood. Hence, the wine cellar had to look as pleasing and gorgeous as the rest of the house.   

Sleek, W-Shaped Metal Racks That Are Easy to Install   

Since this cellar had to be contemporary, the team automatically went for a modern wine cellar racking. In particular, they chose a wine rack made from metal and customized it with a black satin finish to make it look very formal. Our partners at VintageView call these the W-shaped metal racks because the rods have corrugations. The rods are fixed onto a backer bar of the same material, and their tips come with rubber finishing caps for safety. We then mounted the metal backer bars on a durable wooden wall.   

A pair of modern, W-shaped metal wine racks in this cellar can hold 27 rows of bottles (you can have yours cut based on the size of your space). The team then installed three (3) pairs of these racks on the left side of the cellar and another three (3) on the right side. With the racks’ triple-deep capacity, the entire metal racking of this cellar can hold 486 bottles of wine in total! 

Contemporary Cabinetry Design   

A considerable part of the home’s interior was built with white oak. To complement this, the team also utilized wood inside the cellar, mainly using it for the cabinetry, open shelves, and backer boards. Apart from the metal wine racking, they enhanced the modern aesthetic of this cellar by building custom floating wooden shelves and drawers at the center of this wine room. Variation was important for this cellar since the owner was meticulous about its design.   

These contemporary, metal wine cellar racks were custom-made such that two (2) metal rods can hold three (3) full wine bottles at once.

This white back panel provided a stunning contrast to our satin-black modern wine cellar racks.

What’s more remarkable about their contemporary wooden shelves is that they fixed them onto the wall together with rectangular glass mosaic tiles. This worked well with our wine cellar lighting, reflecting light more exquisitely throughout the cellar and the dining room — making heads turn quickly!   

Protecting Your Modern Wine Cellar Racking and Wine Collection with a Premium-Grade Glass Enclosure 

To protect the wine collection, conserve the cool temperature, and match the modern racks inside this home wine room, Steve opted to use glass panels and a double glass door as a front enclosure. Glass used in wine cellars should at least be single-paned, but they opted to use double-paned tempered glass that came with H-shape weather strips for sealing and soundproofing. This ensured that the glass would not condense and trigger moisture formation inside this glass wine cellar, which could harm the bottle corks and labels.   

The glass panels are held together by clamp hinges which are popular for indoor glass doors. Lastly, they opted for a stainless steel, matte black H-shape pull handle for the door handle, which looked sleek amidst glass. 

There are three (3) pairs of modern wine cellar racks on each side of the cellar illuminated by two (2) ceiling lights above.

Simple Lighting System That’ll Set You in Awe   

Another feature that sets residential custom wine cellars apart from the rest is the lighting design. We also invest time in planning for good lighting to highlight a wine cellar’s best features. For this home, aside from the modern wine room racks, the team believed that putting in simple, 2-inch recessed can lights could already make a difference. The lights are LED to avoid excessive heat (typical in regular fluorescent lamps). Additionally, LED lights come in more colors, allowing the designers to create a mellow yet dramatic look.   

The owners could also adjust the lights’ brightness through a control panel on the wall outside the cellar. Very convenient! 

Keeping Things Cool and Tidy with the Best Wine Cellar Refrigeration System and Design 

By tidy, we mean aesthetically clean. Some haphazardly-made wine cellars use regular split-type or window-type air conditioning units, which don’t look good at all and don’t provide adequate coolness to the wine cellar. Wine cellars are to be maintained at a specific temperature and humidity throughout, so you need a wine refrigeration system that’s highly durable for all seasons.   

The Coastal team also assessed the wine cellar’s heat load and cooling requirements before deciding on a suitable cooling system. Based on the calculation, Steve found that the best system for this space was a commercial-grade split-type cooling system where the condenser and evaporator are separate. They placed the condenser outside the home and mounted the evaporator on the ceiling behind a perforated wooden grille. This evaporator produces very minimal to no sound, so it doesn’t affect the bottles drastically.   

Mounting the wine cooling system evaporator on the ceiling allows for better air distribution through the wine racks.

How Long Did Building All These Take? 

This beautiful wine cellar was completed within a total of eight (8) weeks — two (2) weeks for planning and six (6) weeks for construction. This was a rather extended timeline because the owner had to make some alterations to the home, which directly affected the implementation of the project. But this wasn’t a worry because the team always works hard to produce the best-quality wine cellar no matter the setback!   

Upgrade Your Seattle Dining Room Today with a Breathtaking Wine Cellar Like This!   

When the team finished the project, the client was astonished and delighted with the work. He was immediately stoked to show the cellar to his family and friends. Undoubtedly, a cellar like this will always be a great conversation starter for you and your visitors.   

The modern wine cellar racking created a slight illusion that the bottles were suspended, while the floating shelves allowed the upright bottles to radiate as amazingly as the other bottles on the metal wine racks.  Build a wine cellar as incredible as this by calling Custom Wine Cellars Seattle! Whether you want a modern, rustic, or traditional basement wine cellar, you can reach us at +1 (206) 792 – 9912.