As you may know, I love to talk about wine crates and boxes! What I want to talk about now is how you can match wine boxes or crates to the specific style of your wine room. There's 3 primary styles: Traditional, Modern and Old World. Inside those 3 categories are sub-categories, but to keep it simple let's stick to the primary ones.
There's many accessories available for wine rooms and cellars, and with a little love (and alot of time) they can be beautifully accented to become your perfect entertainment area, or for that matter, a great place to be alone and de-stressify.
Enhancing the visual appeal of your wine room can make all the difference in the world. When planning out your wine room you'll most likely include at least 1 wine rack and a temperature control system. Most likely you'll have many racks depending on how many bottles need to be stored.
Nowadays most wine racks include cubby holes to store original wooden wine crates or boxes. Generally these are modern-style so let's start there.
Modern Style
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The modern style is usually comprised of mahogany, red oak or a dark hardwood wine racks. The layout of the floor and ceiling is also critical to capturing this look. In this case you have dark hardwoods, so a good contrast would be to store lighter wood wine crates in the cubby holes instead of darker ones.
More often than not a modern wine room will have New World wine bottles in it such as vineyards from the US. Since most vineyards in the US already produce light wood wine boxes, decorating a modern wine room or cellar with them can be fairly smooth.
There is one caveat though: Rare cult Napa vineyards (The ones that make wine boxes) are often high in demand and have tiny productions. This presents a bit of a challenge, and you may have to improvise since Napa wine boxes may not be available to you when you need them. One way to get around this is to order Italian wine boxes which are also made of light color wood. In the meantime, buy yourself a few cases of Super-Tuscan wines so the match can be completed while you wait for the Napas to come on the market.
Next, lets talk about the Old World...
Old World Style
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The Old World wine cellar is often made of stone and can quickly capture your imagination, and take you back in time to a different era.
In the case of the above picture it appears that the racks are made of reclaimed pine planks. The owner of the cellar seemed to mix in a rustic feel to the space, but this doesn't take away from the look at all. As a matter of fact I think it looks better. Creating a simple yet elegant environment is quite difficult. Ask any interior decorator and they'll say the same.
The same rule of dark wood racks to light wood wine boxes still applies. As you can see, the boxes brighten up the room and brings out the Old World look, like an exceptional Grand Cru brings out the flavor of a filet mignon. The Old World style reminds you that some things never change.
Onto the Traditional Style..
Traditional Style
Your Traditional style wine room will often have light-toned hardwood racks and a tiled or brick floor. The ceiling is often matte, and the lighting will be ornate.
As you can see in the cubbys below the wine racks there's a mixture of different wine boxes and crates. What you'll want in this case are darker-tone ones to contrast the light-tone wine racks. Ideally your looking for stained, dark-grain or ones with vibrant color designs/pictures such as red or green.
A traditional wine cellar is ideal for use as a calming, personal environment as opposed to one for entertaining but with a few tweaks that can be changed. Personally I like this style because of it's simplicity, and because I enjoy a serene environment. I like to visit the Modern and the Old World, but I like to live in the Traditional. That's just me...
When it comes to you though, you may want to start acquiring wine crates for your own decorative accents. When your ready, send me an e-mail or give me a call. Alot of our clients send pictures of their incomplete wine rooms to us for suggestions. I'd be happy to take a look at yours and give you a recommendation!
Patrick
518-475-8625
