Metal Wine Racks

Stainless steel wine racks go well with modern kitchens that tend to have a lot of shiny surfaces and stainless steel appliances. If your kitchen is more "old world", you'll want to get a metal wine rack that has a aged finish, or one that is or looks like copper.



The thing I always look for in wine racks is how stable they are. In this sense, the classic stack-style wine racks are best. Some of the newer designs -- racks where only the top 4 inches of the bottle is supported or held by the wine rack, just look like trouble to me. Some of these designs are better than others. I'm all for good, innovative design, but some of these wine racks -- particularly the wall-mounted ones, look really unstable to me.

Call it bad feng shui if you want, but every time I walk by one I cringe a little, hoping nobody is going to knock or even nudge the wine rack. And for my wine, which I paid $20 and up per bottle for, I'm gonna get a wine rack I trust, thank you very much.

Well made metal wine racks have a definite advantage over wooden ones: they're stronger, so the can pull off the "floating wine bottles" look much easier than wood can. If they are scratch resistant, you can even get away with banging them up a little, aka they don't have to be treated as gently as the bottles.

Of course, any wall mounted wine rack MUST be mounted properly. Wine bottles usually weigh a bit less than 2 pounds each, so even a minimalist 4-bottle wine rack is holding up 8 pounds even without the weight of the rack. Get yourself to a hardware store and buy a good set of wall anchors. Do not be intimidated by installing the wall anchors -- take a deep breathe, read the instructions and go slowly. If you can drill a hole and turn a screwdriver, you can put wallanchors in, and your wine rack, your wine and your wall will all be MUCH better off. Hanging a wine rack without anchors opens the risk of having that cheap wall board (which is sometimes not much stronger than re-enforced cardboard) give, and you'll end up with an ugly hole in the wall.

One thing metal does not have an advantage over wood is with sharpness. Be especially careful with cheaply made wine racks here, and with the "grape leaf" designs. Metal can be extremely sharp (sheet metal delivers a cut that you'll never forget), and even a mild example of it can tear clothing in a snap. This is especially true of wall-mounted wine racks -- somebody squeezing by the wine rack at a crowded party can easily tear a blouse. Mounting the wine rack just above shoulder level will help with this.

For ountertop metal wine racks, the 3 bottle grape vine wine rack from Finest Wine Racks is a nice choice for $49.00. They also have a larger 5 bottle rack for $59. If you have a "modern, clean look" to your kitchen, these are a little too frilly. But they are stable and for the right person they're a great choice.

If you need something that is tall and skinny and metal, search for words like "wine tower". Ewineracks has some nice options like the Torino Wine Tower (if you're into heavy metal work) or the Celtic wine tower if you want to have both a wine rack and a wine bar -- so you can hang glasses and set a decanter down, and have a shelf or two left over for maybe cheese or fruit or whatever tickles your fancy.