Bordex Bordex 72 Bottle Wine Rack - Cherry Finish

07/02/2014

Sturdy and simple, but not easy

Enno Phile

These commercial-grade Bordex wine racks store a lot of wine in a small footprint. They accommodate wide-body burgundy bottles. (The larger 1.5-liter bottles will fit on top, but not in the individual bottle spaces.)

The racks are strong, sturdy, attractive and elegant in their simplicity. Their modular design allows expansion options. We have three of the 72-bottle racks. We are pleased with them. We would buy them again. In fact, we did. We would also recommend them, with some caveats. There are some things you ought to know upfront, things that may not be obvious beforehand. To wit:

Before you can enjoy the use of these racks, admire them or sing their praises, you must assemble them.

The racks arrive utterly unassembled in a flat-pack box. The 72-bottle model is an intimidating collection of 189 pieces (including the plastic snap-on label protectors, which are fragile). The other parts are metal rails - flat strips of thin steel with keyhole notches (for lack of a better term) that interlock, and 1-inch by 1-inch wood rails, each about 9-inches long. The ends of each wood rail have an impossibly thin X cut, into which the metal rails must be persuaded to slide. We found the cuts in the wood ends to be reasonably accurate, which is to say we did not break any of them.

The assembly instructions are clear and accurate - as far as they go. The assembly process is simple, but do not confuse that with being easy. Assembling a 72-bottle (or larger) Bordex rack is not a task for the easily daunted.

Assembly of a rack this size demands close, focused attention and an extra pair of hands. The instructions recommend that two people should collaborate on the assembly of any rack larger than the 42-bottle model. We concur, and would add that those co-workers should both be reasonably even-tempered. The job is going to require close attention, accuracy, cooperation and a lot of patience. It will likely take you upwards of two hours to complete.

These racks are held together by friction. There are no fasteners, as such. You are going to need a rubber mallet. A claw hammer and a block of wood won't do. A 1-pound mallet will be fine. A lighter one may be frustrating and a heavier one will be unwieldy and could cause damage.

You will need a comfortable, roomy, well-lit work space equipped with a hard, flat and sufficiently large raised surface, such as a table. A floor would work, if your back and knees can manage it. Remember, this is fairly exacting work, and is going to take a while. We strongly recommend the table approach.

The table should be big enough to hold the entire rack without overlap when laid flat. It should be robust enough to withstand some serious mallet work. The 72-bottle rack is about 32 inches square. To avoid damaging anything (there will be much pounding), be sure to lay down padding, especially if you are working on a concrete floor. We opted not to use carpet as a pad because it seemed seemed likely to be too thick and might have complicated the considerable mallet part of the project.

Follow the instructions. Don't try what might seem to be an obvious shortcut by first laying out the entire metal rail grid. It is much easier to add rails, one at a time, as you proceed from one side of the rack to the other.

Also, don't ignore the instructions and succumb to the temptation of immediately driving the wooden rails more than half-way on to the metal rails. Doing so will greatly complicate your ability to adjust as you go - the need for which is an absolute certainty.

The wood rails will flop around a bit while you are assembling the first grid. That's OK, but do take care to make sure the notches in the metal rails are mated properly, and accurately centered over the X cut of each wood rail. Again, bring a clear head and plenty of patience to this job.

If you plan to join racks together, be sure to get enough plastic connectors. Each "kit" contains eight connectors, an awkward number for a rack this size. If you are joining two 72-bottle racks, you will need 18 connectors - which is to say, three kits. You could simply place the individual racks close together, but without the connectors you will relinquish nine bottles of secure storage capacity.

The racks, which seem quite stable once they are populated with bottles, do not come with wall-attachment brackets. We were less than impressed with the plastic straps that are sold separately. They seemed flimsy and difficult to attach (the assembled rack is necessarily in the way).

If you are handy, you can probably fashion a suitable bracket or strap yourself. Unless you are stacking racks, or if you live in a seismically active area, you may not need to attach the racks to a wall.