For The Love Of Port

I purchased this from Vigilant in Dover, New Hampshire. My goal when searching was to find something that could hold at least 180 bottles because that was approximately what I had stored in my "box wall" that was blocking (very small dog) access to the living room and dining room. The more inquisitive dog passed away, and the remaining dog is much less naughty, so I figured it'd be reasonably carpet-safe to finally get rid of the box wall.

This is 10 columns, 10 rows, and double deep - 200 bottles! In this picture it's not quite completed because there is a table top that has not yet been attached, but it's close enough. The IVDP logo is going to sit flat on top of the table as decoration - its diameter is about the same as the table's depth.
This will primarily be used to store wood aged Ports. We have air conditioning so the house temp is pretty stable all year, so that works fine for tawnies and whites.

Looks like a great table to store some Madeira bottles too, Glenn. Yeah, I realize you can stand them up, but they look good in display racks too and as you well know, require no temperature control or avoidance of light.

Light is something we're keeping an eye on. It comes in the front window (to the right of the front door as you're entering the house) and also the window over the front door, but as near as we can tell the rack's position is safe. The roof over the front porch creates an angle that prevents light from reaching the rack's position during the summer, and the sun's own position prevents direct light from getting there starting about now and should last all winter and spring.

I ended up with 3 columns of white Port, 3 columns of tawny Port, and 3 columns of ruby Port. The rubies are all mature and ready-to-drink, so shouldn't be harmed by steady 68-70 degree storage for a few years before they're consumed. There's also 1 column of miscellaneous bottles which are mostly red wines right now.

I moved my small Madeira collection (~30 bottles) into the office where the 3 x wine fridges are.

Here's the (mostly) completed rack all loaded up. There is molding that goes around the base but I haven't had the opportunity to install that yet - it was delivered late.

It looks great!

What a lovely piece. And a lovely set of rooms.