Vintec Australia supplied and installed climate-controlled wine cabinets to store and display a large collection of Australian and international wines at the new Dan Murphy's Double Bay store.

Approached by David Smeed, National New Store & Refurb Coordinator in March 2013, Vintec had to design, configure, specify and fitout a cost-effective wine storage solution across three different designated areas of the store with a quick turnaround – one bank of cellars for fine red and white wines, one bank for rare champagnes and one bank solely for Penfolds Grange vintages.

Offering such an impressive range of alcoholic beverages, the store was designed to be unlike any other – the most interesting part of the design being the dedication of different areas to specific products including over 650 whiskies, hundreds of beers, aged wines, champagnes and international wines.

In addition to the extensive range of rare champagnes, the real standout attraction of the store was a full vertical of 57 vintages of Penfolds Grange starting with the inaugural 1951, with a combined value of $330,000 (including the Vintec wine cabinets to accommodate them).

Vintec selected 16 climate-controlled 170-bottle single/multi-zone wine cabinets from the latest 'Noir' borderless black glass range, configured with specially designed wooden shelves to lay bottles with labels facing and parallel to the glass doors to optimise visibility and accessibility.

Vintec’s equipment selection for the store’s wine storage was based on the unique attributes of these wine cabinets: The cabinets can be set at a constant temperature of 12°C-14°C; have no bright lights (LED does not generate any damaging UV light) and the treated glass doors also limit any outside light from reaching the bottles; have an anti-vibration system (wooden shelves reduce movement and a slow-cycling compressor is housed outside the unit on rubber shock-pads); maintain humidity levels, keeping the corks moist so as not to dry out; are equipped with a lock and their design is outstanding with the ability to switch the internal LEDs on and off based on opening hours.

The decision to supply independent climate-controlled cellars rather than a centralised refrigeration system for each of the banks was based on the objective of containment: should there be an electrical failure of any sort, this solution allowed the risk for valuable stock to be limited to 1 unit of 16 only, instead of 100% of stock.