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Oversized wine bottles and wine coolers: irreconcilable?

Oversized wine bottles and wine coolers: irreconcilable?

The times when almost all 0.75 litre wine bottles were the same standard size are definitely over.

Over the last few years, bottle shapes and lengths that often deviate far from the norm have become more established. This leads to new challenges for wine storage, and particularly for wine storage in wine coolers.

There are many cabinets available where it would be impossible to place two layers of wine bottles behind one another, other than perhaps standard Chianti or Bordeaux bottles. Cabinet depths are often around 65cm or less. With these dimensions, not even standard bottles can be placed in consecutive rows. As a result, the capacity of the wine cabinet is reduced by almost 50%. When choosing a wine cooler, it is important to note if it is possible to place bottles behind each other, and if so, what types of bottles can be accommodated.

Bottle diameters pose a similar problem, whether Champagne, Amarone, or magnum bottles: if a wine cooler has extendable racks, the space between racks can soon become too small, depending on bottle type. Alternatively, racks are spaced at larger intervals, which, of course, has a negative effect on the cabinet’s overall capacity.

SWISSCAVE wine coolers, 60cm wide and 70cm deep as standard, have some of the deepest interiors on the wine cabinet market. Moreover, the 1-zone unit is 2.5cm deeper than the 2-zone cooler. This provides a shelf depth that allows even larger bottles to be arranged in consecutive rows (one behind the other), particularly in single zone units. Depending on the shape of the bottles, the bottles at the front may lightly rest on the bottles behind them (i.e., they are slightly tilted). However, this will not have a negative effect on wine storage.

Some producers now use extremely tall bottles for aesthetic reasons. For optimal storage, we recommend placing standard sized bottles in the back row, and the excessively tall ones in the front row. This will allow bottles to be placed in double rows in most the wine cooler.

SWISSCAVE intentionally made the standard width 60cm, so that it fits within the dimensions of standard, built-in kitchen cabinets so that the wine cooler can be integrated seamlessly. This means the wine coolers can easily be moved into apartments, which can be problematic with larger units.

With an exterior width of 60cm, 6 standard 0.75 litre bottles can be placed side-by-side (5 bottles in the back row). Large diameter bottles will extend slightly beyond the rack, but will have enough space in most cases. With extremely wide bottles, certain Burgundies, for example, it may be the case that only 5 bottles can be placed side-by-side. The optimized interior of SWISSCAVE wine coolers allows for most types of bottles to be accommodated.

The bottom and top shelves provide ample room for the storage of champagne, magnum, or 3-litre bottles. Additionally, racks can be easily removed by hand without additional tools, providing room for a greater number of larger sized bottles, such as champagne bottles.