Building Residential Glass Wine Cellars for Stylish Homes

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Coastal Custom Wine Cellars and ourteam of experts have years of experience designing and building incredible residential glass wine cellars for their California clients.

This stunning glass-enclosed wine cellar features a stained glass Barolo door on the room’s exterior. It’s a dynamic entrance to a beautiful and stylish room. Once inside the room, visitors are greeted with a comfortable tasting table, beautiful art and decor, and the centerpiece – one of Coastal Custom Wine Cellar’s brilliant contemporary wine cellars. Inside the cellar, bottles are stored and protected by Alder wood racking with an Early American stain. Multiple orientations of racking, such as label forward racks, display rows, X bins, and case storage, allow for over 1500 bottles to be stored inside! Continue reading below to know the full details of this project!

A Captivating Entryway for Unique Residential Glass Wine Cellars

For a collector who is passionate about wine and art, orchestrating a wine room design is a dream project. Take it from this homeowner who had two rooms allocated as dedicated spaces to enjoy his hobbies! Right when you approach the wine room, you are greeted by a beautifully-stained Barolo door. A Barolo door is primarily a wooden door with a huge decorative glass insert, usually in the center. Some Barolo doors have clear glass, others have some iron etching on them, while the rest, like this one, have gorgeous stains. The best thing is you get to have them customized according to the design you want!

The solid white frame or the wooden component of the door is made of exterior-grade, Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL). LVL is a product of an innovative engineering approach wherein sheets of hardwood are combined using an adhesive to create one whole, thick, and highly durable door. LVL is known to be more stable than sawn lumber — no warping is guaranteed for the life of the door. They’re also utilized for structural beams, so you know the strength and quality is top notch.

Even today, the colorful stained glass continues to look amazing from both sides of the door!

Residential Glass Wine Cellar Designed and Built by Coastal Custom Wine Cellars

A Second, Dedicated Enclosure Only for the Wines

As you walk past the stained Barolo doors, you arrive at a sitting area where every piece was thoughtfully selected. You can tell the owner’s appreciation for interior design here, and you get to immerse in it as you sip a glass of your favorite wine.  Beside the lounge is the refrigerated walk-in wine cellar in a Barolo enclosure. The dual-paned, tempered glass was kept clear from any etching or stain to fully showcase what was inside the cellar.

Residential glass wine cellars with expertly-stained Barolo doors are next level stylish.

We installed two fixed panels on each side of the enclosure and a single 34″ door in the center. The wooden component of the second enclosure is made of stained Alder wood with, again, an LVL core. The door also has an automatic bottom that immediately seals the threshold once you close the door.  As a final polishing touch to the wood, we brushed all the surfaces with lacquer.

Keeping Wines Fresh With A Noiseless, Industrial-Grade Wine Cellar Cooling System

Once you enter the cellar, you’ll be embraced by the cool air that’s keeping the entire wine cellar humid and the wine collection fresh. What’s awesome here is that even though the cooling system is running or operating, you won’t hear anything as the machine is designed to be completely silent. This feature is highly favorable for wines because it means there are fewer to no sound vibrations in the room.

We used a High Static (HS) Series cooling unit from US Cellar Systems, one of the premier wine refrigeration specialists in the country for residential glass wine cellars.  The HS Series is an ETL-certified, powerful wine cellar cooling system that comes with aluminum rust-proof housings. The unit is a ducted split system where the condenser is placed outside the house and the air is pushed from the handler to the cellar via a duct.  The only things you’ll see in the cellar associated with the cooling system are the grills that conceal the ducts.

When we were building this cellar, it was during the time when the home underwent an extensive interior renovation project, so we were able to install insulation and run the coils behind the walls and ceiling conveniently.

There is a ton of wine cellar cooling units in the market. You can even have one customized! The bottom line is, you need to choose the most suitable cooling system that can adequately serve the size of your wine room and maintain the temperature requirement of your wine collection.

Repurposed Wine Barrels for a Warm, Rustic Ceiling

Another interesting attribute of this modern glass wine cellar is the ceiling. Instead of using plywood or hardwood ceilings, we let our creativity take the drive and used repurposed wine barrels for the entire surface. We were able to secure rights to use old wine barrels and flatten them out to create wooden planks. These are the same repurposed planks that can be used for wine cellar flooring.

Coastal Custom Wine Cellars can provide three types of custom wine cellar flooring/ceilings from used wine barrels: stave, cooperage, and wine-infused planks. Each design represents a different part of a wine barrel. For this wine room, we specifically used cooperage which is the wine barrel table top.  If you’re into off-the-wall, unexpected designs, wine barrel ceilings can add that touch of eccentricity to your glass wine room.

Wine Cellar Racks With An Old-World Charm

The largest component of this contemporary wine cellar is its custom wine cellar racks. Everything you see here was custom-built with a design that was strategically thought of. Every part of the rack serves a purpose and we made sure to make space for everything that was related to wine drinking. These include decanting tools, wine boxes, and of course, the bottles.

This is the repurposed wine barrel ceiling and one of the ducts of the wine cellar cooling system.

The structure was made from Alder wood and polished with Early American stain to achieve a dark brown hue.  From the photos, you’ll notice that the wine rack was built from floor to ceiling, so the space was fully maximized. The upper half of the wine rack was designed to have six rows of triple-deep horizontal wine racks. The middle was filled with two rows of high reveals. Lastly, the bottom half features different compartments including solid diamond bins, wine case storages, and single 750ml slots.

The rightmost part of the cellar was built with a tabletop, a drawer, and a small, two-door cabinet to hold other things the owner may possess. The air space of that portion is enough to accommodate magnum-sized bottles, and the table could be used as a decanting area.  At Coastal Custom Wine Cellars, we always make sure you get more value out of your investment! All in all, this medium-sized wine cellar could safely hold a total of 1,500 bottles, most of which are standard 750 ml wines.

As a final touch, we added LED lights to selected areas within this rustic wine cellar rack. By just following the glow, you can see there’s light within the high-reveal racks and the upper horizontal racks. You can’t directly see the bulbs or light source because we hid them under light valances. Light valances are additional molding built into a cabinet to conceal under-cabinet lighting and help direct light to a target area. This and many more innovations can be applied to your wine cellar when you work with an expert!

Own a Glass Residential Wine Cellar That’s Both Efficient and Stylish!

A wine cellar is a big investment that will pay off in the long run. Whether you have a rare wine collection that you’re planning to consume only during special occasions or 10 years later, or just a collection for casual, everyday drinking, investing in a wine cellar will help you enjoy your wines in their best quality.

For all your wine cellar needs, you can reach out to us at Coastal Custom Wine Cellars. We’ve been building refrigerated residential glass wine cellars for years inside homes and large commercial establishments, and we offer complete services from the design down to maintenance and repair. A huge percentage of our projects involve renovating broken or outdated wine cellars, and we’re always happy to serve our clients no matter how easy or challenging the project is.

We are a team of wine cellar designers and builders who understand the behavior of wines, and it’s our passion to help you create a wine cellar you can truly be proud of!

We would love to hear your thoughts about what you want for your wine cellar! Contact us at +1 (949) 200 – 8134 or send us a message through our contact form.

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