'Wine-rack' motifs are formally shown to exhibit the unexpected property of a negative Poisson's ratio (auxetic behaviour) for loading in particular directions. This property is confirmed through the analysis of analytical expressions for the in-plane off-axis mechanical properties derived for an idealised hinging wine-rack model as well as through molecular simulations of nanoscale molecular systems. It is also shown that auxeticity for loading off-axis complements the more well-known property of negative compressibility demonstrated in other directions which results from the very high positive Poisson's ratio exhibited on-axis.