Impressed with Vine Vault lay flat boxes

I’ve previously used all Domaine boxes because I just pick them up when I visit my wine, but I have to say … Vine Vault boxes are significantly better at the same price.

They’re double thick (so they stack much more confidently) and - importantly - unlike the Domaine boxes, they actually fit Riesling bottles! I’m officially a convert!

Agree!

I didn’t realize Elton was selling these outside of actual vine vault locations. Definitely top notch boxes. Only downside is they don’t hold 12 bottles of every shape. Some are only 10ish bottles.

Seems like from the pictures on Amazon that riesling bottles would be a tough fit.

Haven’t you been following Chang’s posts? You can fit 18 Riesling bottles without the dividers…

It’s possible some don’t fit, but just put some Prum + Smith Madrone bottles in yesterday no problem. Domaine boxes fit no riesling bottles that I’ve found.

As I said earlier they’re even better if you don’t put the terrible dividers in.

How are the Vine Vault boxes with extra tall riesling bottles? Sometimes I get the impression some producers are trying to compete for who has the tallest 750ml bottle, which makes packing them a nightmare

I don’t drink Riesling so I don’t much care, but they fit even big champagne bottles nicely. You can put like 14-18 750 and a bunch of 375s in one box.

I think weinboxes are the only solution for the tall German bottles, a few threads on WB.

That’s the conclusion I’ve been slowly coming to. Though Michael’s comment has been wondering if I can place those long riesling bottles lengthwise instead of widthwise and then place 1-2 bottles regularly to fill out the rest of the length. Looks like I have some experimenting to do

Take a look at LAN’s Culmen bottling. The 750ml is 4.8 lbs and roughly the size of any other producers liter bottle. I get that flagship bottles are supposed to have a little flash, but its kind of vexing for those with rack constraints…

Update with the results of my experiment.
I grabbed a Domaine lay flat 6pack since that’s what I had around (the 6packs are the same length and width of the 12pack but with less height). I managed to fit 5 tall riesling bottles and 1 standard bottle in a single layer. I cut out a small amount of cardboard to place in between the riesling bottles and the standard bottles as there was a bit too much room and otherwise the bottles flopped around a bit too much. The riesling bottles could use some mesh sleeves so they don’t bump into each other though.

Overall I’m quite pleased with the results. Means that if I place a flat piece of cardboard on top of the first layer of bottles in a 12pack I can fit 10 tall riesling bottles and 2 standard bottles in a standard, easy to find lay flat boxes. While the von Winning bottles are quite tall, they are far from the tallest ones and the box would still have room to fit even taller bottles. Maybe even mags?


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You’ll be able to fit more in a vine vault box. They’re much taller. Also if you don’t use the insert you can stack way more.

Michael,

I don’t doubt that. Riesling bottles’ unique shape presents its own unique challenges and frustrations. The issue is fitting tall riesling bottles in the normal orientation you’re supposed to place bottles in a box as they’re always too tall. So I wanted to see if I the bottles could safely rest if I rotated them 90°.

I’m sure you can probably fit more in the vine vault boxes, and eventually I’ll get around to purchasing a few to try them out. But in the meantime, it was just good to know that I can store tall riesling bottles with the boxes I have

Good work. The solution is pathetically obvious in retrospect.

Btw I wouldn’t put cardboard unless you need the labels to be perfect. They generally will be nearly pristine anyways even w/o it and it’ll greatly increase the capacity.

Yeah. I’m amazed myself. After Michael’s comments I ran another experiment with an upright Domaine 12-pack box with the upright inserts removed. Managed to fit 4 tall riesling bottles laying down when they were rotated. They fit perfectly [flirtysmile.gif]. Placed some cardboard in between each layer and managed to stack 4 layers high that way, for a total of 16 tall riesling bottles in that configuration.

The cardboard helps stabilise and keep the bottles steady, otherwise they end up tilting and wobbling a bit due to their geometry. I also could’t fit another layer of wines by not adding the cardboard layers so it’s not like I’m losing anything by doing it that way.
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I use the plastic sleeves with my weinboxes, don’t like the bottles grating on each other.

just started using these for all my champagne bottles

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