How to Replace NewAir Wine Cooler Racks

NewAir wine cooler shelves are easily removable so that as your collection grows you can adjust the storage. There are a few reasons why you might want to remove your shelving.

1. Your wine bottles are larger than standard sizes.
2. A shelf has broken in some way.
3. You’re moving your cooler and need to empty it.

No matter your collection or reason for removing a shelf, it’s a very simple process.

Chances are, you’re removing a shelf to make room above another one. Wine racks are built to fit standard bottles, but there are two primary categories of wine with a variety of above-standard sizing: Bordeaux and champagne.

Large bottles can bump into the rack above when you attempt to slide them into your cooler. When you shop for a wine cooler, it’s important to consider the size of the bottles in your collection relative to the number of bottles the wine cooler can hold. You may find that the cooler is built to hold the total number of bottles in your collection, but because you have large bottles, you may have to remove a shelf to make room and reduce the total number of bottles the fridge will fit.

Some NewAir wine coolers have waved shelves. Inverting these waved shelves will allow you to fit bigger bottles. It’s wise to refer to your manual or to contact NewAir for the right product match if you’d like to have these in your cooler.

Before you try anything, if you’re aging wine, do your best not to disturb the bottles.

For all bottles on the shelf that you are replacing, carefully remove them and place them on their sides somewhere they won’t roll away. Aging wine has sediment that gradually drifts to the bottom and it’s best not to shake them if you can avoid it. This is one reason why wine coolers are best for aging wine instead of somewhere like your refrigerator door.

As for the wine bottles not on the shelf you are replacing, the process of removing and replacing a wine rack shouldn’t disturb them too much. If you’re also moving your cooler to another location, then you should definitely remove all the wine from the cooler first.

You will likely find that your wine cooler contains levels of notches to move your shelves up and down. Your large bottles might be able to fit without having to take any shelves out if you shift a few shelves down to make room.

If this doesn’t work, you will either need to contact NewAir to ask about waved shelves, or simply remove one of the shelves to make room.

If you don’t have a NewAir cooler, you may instead have to replace shelves that slide on wheels. Finding a waved shelf for a rack on wheels is more challenging, so you will likely just be taking this shelf out to make room.

Here are three simple steps to remove one:

1. Facing your wine rack, tilt one side of the shelf up to pop the wheels off the track.
2. Slide the shelf out towards you with the other two wheels still on the track.
3. Pop the other side off the track to remove it.

When you go to place a wine rack back onto the track, do the same steps in the reverse order so that you put two wheels on the track, slide it in, then pop the other two on.

If you’re stuck with simply taking a wine rack out to make space for a rack of large bottles, you might want to consider an upgrade that can fit your whole collection in one place.

Know that to age wine it should be kept at 55°F, 60% humidity, in low-intensity lighting and on stable, vibration-proof racks. The only alternatives to a wine cooler that can contain your wine for long-term aging is either a wine cellar or a wine cabinet. Both are much bigger commitments and will take up significantly more space than your wine cooler.

Considering a larger wine cooler should be your next choice if you’re concerned your collection contains too many large bottles. Some of the biggest wine coolers can hold as many as 160 standard bottles. Keep in mind that you may still have to remove a shelf to fit your large bottles, bringing it down to storage fewer total bottles, even if you have a larger wine cooler.