6 May 29, 2022The Sunday Times
Home
While a wine cellar
isn’t and never will
be a mass market
item, it is becoming
more democratic
Mark Dickens, says: “In
recent years we have seen a
broadening of our client base.
We still have a lot of inquiries
from the traditional, older,
often male wine buff, but
we are also now seeing our
underground cellars appeal
to a wider demographic. We
are working with a lot of
younger clients. As a woman
in the wine business I find
it gratifying to see more
female wine collectors
getting in touch.
“While a wine cellar isn’t
and never will be a mass
market item, it is becoming
more democratic, and as more
people seek to include wine
storage in their homes, so the
nature of that storage has
changed. People are realising
that they don’t need to devote
an entire room to cellaring and
are much more creative with
the spaces they bring us. In
the past few years we’ve been
asked to create wine room
designs for repurposed
shower rooms, under-stair
spaces, fireplace alcoves,
disused elevators and larders.
“Where space is less
limited, a lot of international
clients come to Mark with a
simple request: ‘Make my
wine room envy-inducing.’
Mark and the design team
have created some really
rather spectacular spaces —
everything from an
underground three-room
wine complex to a futuristic
wine room where the wine
appears to float in mid-air.”
One client, a 59-year-old
medical consultant with a
spiral cellar in his Oxfordshire
home, says he was inspired by
a friend’s wine room. “The
cellar created a safe haven for
my wine collection and, by
having a glass door, we added
an attractive feature to the
room. It has become a bit of
a talking point when guests
come over. Everyone wants
to go down into it.”
Savills has several
multimillion-pound homes
with opulent wine rooms for
sale. James Lamb, head of the
estate agency’s branch in
Loughton, Essex, says: “The
pandemic shone a light on
how we live in our homes in
a way it hadn’t before. When
lockdown restrictions were
lifted but restaurants and bars
remained closed, many
entertained friends and family
at home more frequently than
before. Subsequently having
a wine cellar or tasting room
became more desirable. At
the upper end of the market
having a wine room brings
with it bragging rights.”
At Wineware, a company
based in Littlehampton, West
Sussex, there has been a rise
in commissions for luxury
under-stairs wine storage
where previously people may
have built storage cupboards
or a downstairs lavatory. It
has clients all over the UK.
“A wine room is a good use of
dead space,” explains Lynsey
Wellman, director of the
company. “They give a room
a wow factor.”CABERNET RESHUFFLE
It’s a cellars market: these companies are offering
bespoke modern wine rooms. By Louise Eccles
Main: Ross Van
Geest’s personal
wine room,
designed by him.
Clockwise from
above: an under-
floor wine cellar
that can be
viewed through
glass; a wine
room; an under-
floor cellar that
can be accessed
by a trapdoor (all
by Spiral Cellars)BEN NICHOLSON‘T
he very best
of vineyards
is the cellar,”
Lord Byron
wrote in his
satirical poem Don Juan.
Two hundred years on and
the sentiment holds true for
wine connoisseurs, but the
traditional cellar has
undergone a modern
makeover.
Oenophiles are converting
pantries, shower rooms and
cloakrooms into state-of-the-
art “walk-in winedrobes” to
ensure that their beloved wine
collections are aged to
perfection and on display to all.
While wine was once stored
in cobwebbed cellars
concealed from view,
homeowners are building
secure glass-fronted,
temperature and humidity-
controlled wine rooms and
erecting wine feature walls
instead of bookshelves. Those
with deeper pockets are
creating £90,000 vaults in the
middle of their kitchen floors,
accessed by a glass trapdoor
so that guests can view the
collection beneath their feet.
Estate agents say that wine
grottoes are an increasingly
popular feature in high-end
properties and an appealing
selling point. Savills estate
agency is marketing a
17th-century manor house in
Essex with an air-conditioned
vault with glass doors,
containing enough wine to
fill a shop, and a dedicated
tasting room, for £5 million.Opinions do vary, but
wine should typically hold
a constant temperature of 11C
to 14C and humidity of
between 60 per cent and
65 per cent, and must be kept
away from direct sunlight.
Last year Ross Van Geest,
42, who runs independent
delis, and his friend Tom
Goswell, 36, a carpenter,
started a company creating
bespoke wine rooms in
people’s homes. Van Geest
started the business called
Vinum Copia after converting
a boot room in his
Northamptonshire home into
a high-tech wine storage room
capable of storing 900 bottles.
Van Geest says: “We make
the rooms to suit how people
enjoy wine. If you drink lots
of burgundy or magnums you
need wider spaces. You may
want LED lighting in there
with night-time mood settings.
We do small unrefrigerated
storage for small privatecollections that people want
to drink, through to big wine
rooms with air conditioning
that can hold 1,000 bottles.
“A lot of people hold their
wine in bonded storage so
that it’s easy to trade because
people know it has been
stored properly at the right
temperature and humidity.
However, other people would
like to be able to see that wine
and have access to it so they
can enjoy it in the evenings
and at dinner parties. A lot of
our new business comes from
people who have seen our
wine rooms in their friend’s
houses at dinner parties.”
His own, vast collection is
ordered by country, region,
colour and value. “I have
sections for red, white, rosé,
champagne, port and dessert
wine. Sections are then
broken down by country and
region. High-value wines are
typically kept in their cases
unopened in the drawer
spaces, everyday drinking in
the cubes and better drinking
wine in the racking.”
Lucy Hargreaves, the
managing director of Spiral
Cellars in Wimbledon,
southwest London, has built
more than 4,000 wine cellars
— costing between £24,000
and £87,000 — in the UK and
globally. These include deep
cylindrical vaults with spiral
staircases, which can be
accessed from doors built into
the kitchen or hallway floor.
Hargreaves, who runs the
business with her husband,