Glass Wine Cellar against plaster / brick exterior wall

Hi all,

I’m researching building a glass enclosed wine wall in the back of my dining room in conjunction with some larger home renovations early next year. There is a 10’ wide x ~25” deep space that would be perfect to frame in and install a glass wall/doors on the front. As I have 10’ ceilings as well, I could easily reserve some of the ceiling space for extra insulation and perhaps even for cooling. I will give some more details on my plan below, but my primary question right now is related to this being an older home (1912 in Richmond, VA) which currently has plaster walls throughout. The rear wall that I would like to frame in is plaster over a brick exterior side wall. Note that the area I live in has standalone houses placed very close to each other, so there’s probably only 6 feet or so of space between my exterior wall and my neighbor’s. My wall is east-facing for reference, and shouldn’t get much direct sunlight outside at all. There is currently wood flooring below with a very shallow ~2-3 foot deep crawl space below under large 10” joists (no basement).

My questions are:

  1. How would you recommend I handle the vapor barrier and insulation in this situation? I think I might be able to spare a few inches in the back if needed. I’d rather not have to tear down the [EDIT:plaster…not drywall], but will consider it if needed.
  2. If I do a ducted cooling system, can I vent to the crawl space below the wine cellar (the crawl space covers the full floorplan of the house), or simply duct it to the outside since it’s an exterior wall?

Additional details:

    • Cooling: Cellar will be actively cooled. CellarPro or the something similar
  • Walls: Left, right and ceiling would be framed in with new drywall / insulation. Considering making the right wall glass since you’ll see that end as you walk from the kitchen towards the front of the house. On the left side there is a coat closet that this would butt up against. I was considering dropping part of the cooling in there, or under it in the crawl space since that’s also where the access door is.
  • Glass: Got a decent quote for ~$12K shipped (not including installation) from a company in MI (WeldWork) for custom steel-framed double insulated glass with (4) 9-ft 4-lite doors (2 pairs french doors) sealed and with bullet hinges.
  • Racking: Floor to ceiling racking for around 500 bottles, triple deep with a mix of primarily label forward as well as some display and box storage shelving. Considering VintageView or Millesime but would love suggestions of similar but more cost-friendly options. I don’t currently collect magnums or half-bottles, but thought the suggestions to plan for some of those were good, so may dedicate some space for that.

My inspiration:
https://millesimewineracks.com/media/wysiwyg/winerack/Gallery/full-size/Milesime-83.jpg
and



Thanks!
Stephen

Use closed cell spray foam insulation instead of fiberglass/vapor barrier. You can spray it over brick, drywall, etc. so there is more flexibility. Plus there is less worry about mold issues in the future.

Since you have high ceilings, you could frame a space for a self-contained, front venting cooling unit. This should save significant money over a ducted unit.

I’m currently having a cellar built, so just went through some of these decisions.

Great thanks for the advice John! Do you essentially just have them frame in the newly insulated space? I’m curious how much space you’d lose for the spray foam insulation. I should have some flexibility but probably not too much given the footprint I’m working with.

What is your planned setup?

Stephen, if you are ok with sharing this info, do you have an idea already about cost?
I looked around a little bit last year for a similar project (pretty much what I could fit in my house in Florida) and was scared with the price range informed by 2 vendors (around 30k). At the end I got 2 WE 300 bottle cellars…

I’m shooting to do it for under $20K. If I can do that I’ll probably proceed. Here’s what I have so far for the big ticket items. For those who have sub-contracted these out themselves, am I way off anywhere? What am I missing?

Glass front ~$12K quoted incl. shipping to VA from MI (WeldWork custom glass) (not including installation)

  • 10’w x 9’h steel framed, double pane insulated glass wall with 4 full-height 3 or 4-lite doors with bullet hinges, sealed throughout
  • Note that I also got a quote for $35-40K for the same style of steel-enclosed glass from a local Richmond design firm who does custom glass work
  • Single pane shower glass style was quoted at $2-3K but I don’t think the seal would be as good and am concerned with condensation in humid Virginia summers

Cooling ~$2-4K quoted

  • I’m looking into this still, maybe the self contained CellarPro Houdini for glass applications which I believe is along the lines of what John recommended below

Racking ~$3-5K

  • What do you guys recommend for triple deep label forward displays? I love the look of the Millesime racking which would be closer to $5K for my space but may go with VintageView or something simpler if I can get the same look for a little less

Framing / installation ~$3-5K?

  • TBD to frame / insulate / install the glass / paint? Just a guess and I may try to do this myself with some family help to save some of this expense

Lighting / electrical ~$500-1000

  • TBD - the ambient light from the room will likely be sufficient, but will add a couple electrical outlets and maybe some subtle switch-operated LED lighting to highlight the bottles.

Additional question for those who have built glass enclosed cellars (door access only, not walk-ins), how much space do you recommend from the front of the bottle racking to the glass wall? It’s really only an issue for the portions of the glass wall where there is a frame obviously, but I was thinking 6"? Enough for the bottle and a little extra wiggle room?

For what it’s worth, I also just bought a used 180 bottle Eurocave Confort ($1300! in excellent condition) to pair with my overflowing 200 bottle Eurocave Pure L in case none of this materializes as a temporary / potentially permanent backup plan. ~$4-5K for slightly less storage is tough to argue with…butttt the heart wants what it wants.

thanks for sharing… nice project.

Looks amazing. I can’t say I personally see the value in that amount of storage for that price. I think for $20k you could put in a 2000 sq ft cellar in a basement somewhere and store cases and cases. If you’re in a space-constrained location, wine caves seem to be the way to go.

Yep, to echo what has already been said, I would 100% go with spray foam. We did that with our wine wall and its worked out perfectly (was an easier call since we were buillding our home and did the entire thing in spray foam, but i would have gone this route regardless).

For cooling, we went with a modified split system and have been very happy with it. Seems to work well for wine walls and is worth exploring.

For racking, I looked at multiple options and really liked the wine pegs, but it just wasn’t as functional or efficient as the vintage view (i.e. I could store more bottles for less). Very happy with the choice and would recommend Wine Racks of America. They worked with me a bit on the price (over the phone) and also have free design consultation which was helpful as I would have bought too many racks.

And im regards to overall cost, I would STRONGLY suggest piecing it together yourself vs. Using a single company to do all of it. I looked at it both ways and saved about 40% coming up with the design myself and them using specific trades for each portion of the cellar (insulation, racking, glass, etc). Mine is a little larger than yours at 15 feet by 3.5 feet deep (and close to 10 feet high) and I was a little under $15k all in i believe - see pic below. At first glance, the costs for glass seem kinda high. I’d shop around a bit more and see if you can find someone local.

Good luck with the build- absolutely love my wine wall!
20200810_225713.jpg

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Looks pretty full, Rich!

Keep posting updates on this if you move forward with the build.

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Rich, that’s really cool. How many bottles does it hold?

Yeahhhhh…that’s what my wife always says as well. The funnest part has been having to convince her almost monthly as to why I need to keep my offsite locker in addition to the cellar :wink:

Thanks Marshall!

Right around 1000 bottles (give/take). Wish I didn’t need my offsite, but for some reason more and more bottles keep showing up :wink:

I’m glad my wife can NOT see the cellar. Much safer that way. [drinkers.gif]

For sure the one downside to having the wine wall in the middle of our house :wink:

My first thought when I saw the left, I’d call that the rock wall [snort.gif]

Beautiful cellar - thanks for sharing!

I used Wine Racks of America and had a great experience.

Yep, totally agree. Would recommend them all day long. Solid pricing (especially during their sales) and excellent customer service.

Looks cool.

Does having the glass hurt the wine? Or is that special glass that prevents the light from impacting the wine? By having the bottles sideways, seems the bottles have alot more exposure to light than in the tradition front-to-back layout.