Storing Wine In Your Kitchen: Mistakes to Avoid

As a follow up to my Storing Wine In Your Kitchen Series, I want to share with you some mistakes to avoid.

1. Make sure the openings for storing wine is deep enough so that the wine bottle doesn’t stick out too far.

2. Don’t make the opening so tight it only fits the standard size wine bottle (750 ml). The 1.5 liter size wine bottle (magnum) is also very popular and I recommend that your openings be able to fit both sizes.

3. Pay attention to the location of the kitchen windows and make sure sunshine will not shine directly on your bottles of wine.

4. If you store wine behind a cabinet door and want to be able to lock that cabinet, inform your builder/cabinet maker before the cabinets are made.

5. Consider any physical restrictions you might have that would prevent you from stooping over to retrieve wine stored below the kitchen counter or reaching high to retrieve wine stored above the kitchen counter.

6. If you have young children, make sure wine stored below the counter is located behind a door which can be locked with a key or childproof locks can be applied.

7. Though in the series I showed some photos of wine stored above the refrigerator, it is important to make sure the heat generated from the refrigerator motor does not reach that area as it can dry out the cork and spoil the wine.

Source of photo unknown

8. Avoid storing wine above an oven due to the heat that escapes when the oven door is open.

9. Ice makers generate a lot of heat so make sure if you are storing wine near an ice maker it will not be affected by the heat.

10. Spend time calculating how many bottles of wine you will be storing so you do not end up not having enough storage or you end up wasting space with too much storage.  In the photo below over 100 bottles of wine can be stored under the island. If you do not have that much wine, a better use for some of the space would be to add  cabinets, drawers, or shelves for cookbooks.

Source: The New Smart Approach to Kitchen Design by Susan Maney

11. Make sure if you use decide to have individual storage using the criss-crossed design that the wood is substantial enough so it will not split or break.

Source: Kitchen Ideas That Work by Beth Veillette

My hope is that you enjoyed this series- giving you ideas and preventing mistakes!  Blessings.  …susan

PS I forgot my laptop at home when I left town this past weekend so I skipped my Spiritual & Inspirational Sunday Post.