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The Best Small Wine Racks To Keep In Your Apartment
Our favorite modular, countertop, and wall-mounted storage solutions.
In an ideal world, you’d store your wine in a wine cellar. Specifically, a cool, dark wine cellar (excessive warmth and sunlight can damage wine) with a moderate amount of humidity to keep your corks from drying out. A nice wine fridge also works.
But what if you possess neither of those things? What if all you have is a small apartment with as much storage space as a pair of cargo shorts? In that case, grab yourself a wine rack.
A little apartment-friendly wine rack will help you de-clutter your kitchen and turn your hoard of bottles into something you’ll want to display. Wine racks also allow you to store wine on its side (as opposed to upright), which ensures that corks stay moist and fully functional.
Wine racks do not, however, allow you to regulate your wine’s temperature (which should be around 55 degrees Fahrenheit while in storage), but unless your apartment has a wildly fluctuating climate and you’re trying to age some seriously expensive wine, that isn’t a big deal. For the casual oenophile, a wine rack is a good, easy, and practical wine storage solution. So if you’re ready to solve the mess that is your current bottle situation, here are our top wine rack picks.
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Make Your Home Feel Like a Wine Bar
Classic, attractive, and sturdy, you’ve probably seen variations on this wine rack at many of the establishments where you drink Grüner Veltliner and say things like, “This wine is quite zippy.” The rack is made from ash wood, it can hold up to 12 bottles, and — if your wine collection begins to spiral out of control — you can always expand it. (The design is modular.)
Get JK Adams Ash Wood 12-Bottle Wine Rack ($42) →
A Nice Rattan Option
While it doesn’t hold as many bottles as the above wine rack, this option does have style. Set this in a prominent place in your home (preferably somewhere cool and away from direct sunlight), and it’ll function as a piece of decor. The frame is made from rattan, and it holds six bottles — which should be just fine for most people.
The Shiny Minimalist One
If space is especially tight, try this simple six-bottle wine rack from Nordstrom. It doesn’t waste any room and has a clean, minimalist design perfect for homes that skew modern.
Get Nordstrom Wine Rack ($49) →
A Geometric Alternative
A similar concept, just taller and a little more angular, Viski’s six-bottle Belmont Geo Wine Rack is what we call “match-anything decor.”
Get Viski Belmont Geo Wine Rack ($99) →
A Top-Tier Resting Place
This wine rack only holds three bottles — so why do we like it so much? We love it because A) this rack is unique (you don’t see a lot of marble options out there), and B) it looks amazing. It’s a functional sculpture, essentially, and it’s perfect for any households where wine isn’t purchased by the case.
Get Robin Marble Wine Holder ($138) →
An Eye-Catching Rack
When empty, Be Home’s Argyle Wine Rack looks like a post-modern birdcage. In other words, it gets a pretty high score in terms of design. The golden-hued hammered bronze construction is another big selling point, and you’ll probably get a lot of compliments on this thing.
A Classic Reimagined
Pretend, for a moment, that you’re taking the SATs and get the question, “How do you conveniently store 12 bottles in a cube in the easiest way possible?” The answer, apparently, is Anthropologie’s Barbossa Wine Rack. This iron contraption will hold up to a dozen bottles while taking up minimal countertop space.
Get Barbossa Wine Rack ($68) →
The Fancy Wall Caddy
Let’s say you don’t have any counter space to spare and your kitchen is already overburdened with appliances and half-eaten jars of peanut butter. Get a wall-mounted wine rack. It will not only show your friends and loved ones that you’re truly committed to fermented grape products, but it’ll also help you keep your home tidy. (You probably have a lot of unused wall space.)
Get Antique Brass Wine Rack ($98) →
How to Keep Your Wine Cool
As we mentioned earlier, you should ideally keep your wine in a relatively cool, dark place. This compact wall-mounted wine rack will make that significantly easier. Just pick a shady corner of your home (inside of a closet or pantry, say) and install.
Get Rustic State Sonoma Wood Wine Rack Wall Mounted Bottle Holder ($20) →
The Space Saver
Do you have a kitchen cabinet? Is there room underneath it? If so, we prescribe this wine rack. It’ll make good use of your limited space, and it comes in a few different color options (each with a six-bottle capacity).
Get Jubao Gold Wine Rack Metal Wine 6 Bottles Rack Storage Rack ($20) →
A Solid Wood Stunner
Please, take a minute to admire the simplicity of this “floating” wine rack (which is actually more of a wine shelf). No matter how many square feet you’re currently renting, you’ll be able to find somewhere to put this hand-carved wooden storage device, whether it be your kitchen or the wall directly beside your bed.
Get Live-Edge Floating Wine Rack ($128) →
An Easy Centerpiece
Why does Anthropologie sell so many good small wine racks? We aren’t sure, but it seems as if there’s considerable overlap between the wine-loving crowd and those who partake in the boho-chic lifestyle. No matter the reason, here’s yet another practical, stylish option (made of steel and white marble). Grab it in silver or gold.
The Low-Commitment Pick
We’re big fans of this wine rack’s low profile and straightforward design — and the sub-$20 price is another big selling point. If you’re on the fence and aren’t sure if you need dedicated wine storage because you never have that many bottles in your home, go with this option. But don’t place it under a sunny window as pictured. That is not how you store wine.
Get Mango Wood Cross Hatch Wine Rack ($18) →
A Shelf-Ready Rack
It doesn’t get more basic than this. If you have an empty shelf in your pantry, closet, or living room, place this wooden wine rack on it. Your bottles won’t roll around, they’ll be properly stored on their sides, and you’ll be proud of yourself for making efficient use of your space.
The Versatile One
Keep this bamboo rack upright and construct a tower of wine in your living room, or lay it on its side for convenient countertop wine access. Alternatively, buy a few of these combinable five-bottle racks and stack them together to create the wall of fine reds you think about as you go sleep at night.
Get Lipper International Stacking 5-Bottle Wine Rack ($43) →