Diamond Cube Wine storage

[hotwine]

I used diamonds for several years that I had cobbled together from plywood (1/2", I think, which wasn't stout enough). I used them for several years until they began to fall apart due to the high humidity in the cellar during that period. They worked OK in holding a case each in 13" squares (for Bordeaux style bottles), but KC is right about some of the hassles involved. I used numbered thick paper tags hanging from cupboard cup hooks at the apex of each diamond to indicate bottle locations. Each rack contained something like 16 bins, so bottle locations were recorded in the database as rack #/bin #. <P>In addition to the drawbacks KC mentioned, I found visibility of the bottles to be a problem, especially with the lighting I'm using in the cellar (rope-lights around the edges of the ceiling). I'm using metal racks now, of welded rod, purchased at Sam's Club; each rack holds seven scalloped shelves and each shelf holds two cases, so I get 14 cases per rack. And the bottle labels are clearly visible, even in the gloomy lighting. The numbering system now is: storage unit letter/rack #/shelf #, and it works fine (I'm using three storage units.... the cellar, a EuroCave, and a Haier).