This article, featured in Core77’s Design Blog describes how Jim Cash knew there were better ways to store wine and ended up creating a design niche that has led to Revel being recognized as a leader in the industry.
Cash wanted to strike a balance between density of capacity and ease of viewing the labels. The idea came to him as he was planning to build a cellar in his home. Before he had the cellar, he had a typical wine ‘rack’ in his basement with individual square openings that you insert the bottle in with a ‘cork out’ orientation. Having been frustrated for years with having to pull out one bottle after another, rotate it so the label is ‘right side up’ so you could read it, and then put it back in the rack, often scraping or tearing the label in the process, he said to myself, “I just want a drawer that I can pull out that will reveal four, five or six bottles that are already right side up.”