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La Jolla Modern Mahogany Wine Cellar with Diamond Bins, Wine Drawers, Full Reveal Horizontal Display, Marble Countertop, and a Rolling Ladder


This home is a must-see! At 36,000 sq. ft. this contemporary designed beachfront property is not your average residential house. Building a wine cellar customized to be consistent with the overall quality and look of the home was a unique challenge. We are sure you will enjoy seeing images of this home in La Jolla and gaining insight into the details of this extended custom wine cellar design and construction project.

custom wine cellar

A Modern Custom Wine Cellar Design Created by a Master Builder

The main reason many homeowners invest their time and money in building a wine cellar is to keep their wine collection safe. Wine will provide you with long-lasting enjoyment if it is kept in a climate-controlled environment. It is also important that your wine room is designed with gorgeous styles of racking that provide convenience and ease of access to your prized wines. At Vintage Cellars, we always make sure that our client’s wine cellar can store their prized collection safely and beautifully.

custom wine cellar

An existing wine cellar in a La Jolla, San Diego home was expanded to accommodate the growing collection of the owner. We worked on this project twice. The first installation was completed in 2008. After about 5 years, the client requested us to double the capacity of their wine room, but maintain the contemporary design. We added new sections to the existing racking to provide additional space for more wines.

Cellar Features

An existing wine cellar in a La Jolla, San Diego home was expanded to accommodate the growing collection of the owner.

  • 3,400 Bottle Capacity
  • Library Style Design
  • Traditional Wooden Racking
  • 5 Different Elevations

Stunning Wine Cellar for a Contemporary Home

We completed a wine cellar installation project in La Jolla, an affluent city of San Diego, California, where we had to match the contemporary design of the home. The beautiful residential space was originally built with glass and wood. All the woodworking was constructed from Sapele Mahogany, which is common in many parts of the house. The cabinetry and furniture had to be the same tone and material.

We have worked on this project twice. The first time was in 2008 and the second one was in 2013. We needed to expand and double the size of the custom wine cellar. A very integral part of this homeowner’s life is their wine and the collecting of wine. Our main goal was to create a racking design that consists of various orientations to allow the owner to store different sizes of bottles.

custom wine cellar

Racking Features of the La Jolla Custom Wine Cellar

The original room was constructed when the home was built. The architect, designing team, and contractor gave us a palette to match the existing cabinetry. The owners didn’t know what their needs were going to be. When they buy cases of wine, for example, they just put some of the bottles in the diamond bins and some in individual bottle spaces. In 2013, we tried to make the racking as universal as possible. The original capacity of the wine room was 1,100 bottles. It increased to 1,624 after the expansion of the space and adding more wine racks.

Elevation 1

The first area of the room consists of racking for individual storage at the top section, with a VC-style cover for concealing the evaporator. There are diamond bins in the middle that can store nine bottles in each opening.

We added many slots for large format bottles below the diamond bins because the owners stored bigger bottles in the first room, as big as 9 liters. What we did was to open up a couple of spaces to create a wider wine storage area.

The whole racking in this area has a solid end panel. We took out the vertical supports and put the beam supports across to bear the load.

We incorporated a coved tray feature to allow the owners to get a feel for the beautiful bottles in their collection. The large format bottles are stored in various heights, resulting in a cascading wine display. This style of racking allows for easy visibility of the wine labels. We installed LED lighting above this area to illuminate the space dramatically without emitting too much heat.

Elevation 2

The next racking is labeled Elevation 2, which is the left wall that you will pass by before you go into the other storage area. It consists of horizontal display racks that can store both standard and larger bottles. These display racks, which are 8 ¼” deep, were installed with lighting and mirror at the back.

The middle section has two glass shelves that provide an area for the client’s wine cellar accessories and mini car collection.

custom wine cellar

Elevation 3

On the 3rd Elevation, the top racking includes slots with twelve coved trays and six solid backs. We added new individual column wine racks, and custom cabinets with scalloped neck supports to the existing cabinetry. Now, the total capacity of the individual bottle racking is 384, and the custom cabinets can accommodate 34 bottles.

There is a double deep Sapele Mahogany tabletop where we installed very large steel supports under it. This will provide structural stability for bearing the weight of this big case storage area. The homeowner buys a lot of wine, so he wanted to have an area where he could stack all the boxes.

He didn’t want the boxes to occupy the area at the front. With this feature, he could just bring the wines directly to this storage area, without affecting the aesthetic appeal of the front entrance of his La Jolla custom wine cellar.

Elevations 4 and 5

The next wall is Elevation 4, which consists of wine racks for 98 magnum bottles. The top most section has a VC-style evaporator cover.

Elevation 5 (in front of elevation 3), had twelve coved trays, 16-bottle custom cabinets with scalloped neck supports, and one hundred eighty individual storage slots.

After adding new sections, we ended up having sixteen coved trays, 26-bottle custom cabinets, and 288 individual bottle racking.

custom wine cellar

Rolling Ladder for Easy Access of Wines

Another factor that we consider when designing a wine room is the convenience in accessing the bottles. Since the ceiling of this La Jolla custom wine cellar was tall (about 124” height), we added a hook rolling ladder.

A hook ladder has fixtures that allow it to slide along the rail and can be lifted off the rail if you want to transfer it to another section of the racking on a different wall.

Contact us today at 1-800-876-8789 to start designing and building the custom wine cellar of your dreams.


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With more than 30 years of building Custom Wine Cellars, we are experts in designing and building Custom Wine Cellars from soup to nuts. We help clients nationwide and would be glad to give you a free design for your custom wine cellar.

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