Can anyone tell me the best way to do this?

I baked and carved a cake the size of the crate I wanted, long enough for the size of bottle I wanted. I baked a cake in a bread loaf pan and carved it to look like a wine bottle (flat on the bottom); covered it in fondant. I made the neck out of RKT covered with fondant.

Thanks. Your wine cake is just beautiful - as are the rest of your cakes. I can't imagine carving it out of a loaf cake - yours is just perfect though.

Thanks! It's really not that hard to carve. If it's not exactly round you just fill in a bit with buttercream and slap the fondant on it. I put a wine bottle up to the end of it to use as an eyeball kind of guide. Don't be afraid. It's just cake. What's the worst that could happen? Your family/friends will eat the scraps and mistakes!

I took a class where they taught us how to make one if you're not a carving guru like Ruth. She used 2 cans in the size you want the bottle to be and baked the cakes in the cans. She also took a wine bottle and put foil around the neck and top, then baked a cake in the shaped foil, placed inside another can to hold it up. So the cakes in cans make the bottle and the cake in the foil make the neck and top. But the neck will be very delicate, so be careful.

When you go to place the bottle on the sheet which is the box, you have to carve out some space so the bottle sits inside the carved out space. She said you could have a dowel going through the center of the bottle to hold it all together if you preferred but it's not a must.

HTH