Wine Cellers can be customized to fit the needs and wants of anyone, from novice collector to wine connoisseur. Photo by Anne Gummerson
Those who collect wine tend to fall into two categories: sophisticated collectors who are buying wine to enjoy and share with friends or those who are purchasing wine as a savvy investment to be sold for a profit at a later time.
But for the novice, where to begin? “Don’t put anything in your cellar that you have not tasted, and do not buy wine based on someone else’s opinion,” says Mitchell Pressman, owner of the Chesapeake Wine Company. “The best wine cellar is alive and evolving.”Pressman adds that if a collector were purchasing a number of bottles of one variety, he would be advised to try one bottle every year. “Try it until you decide when the wine has reached its peak,” he says. “There is no magic date. Wine is always changing: day-by-day, month-by-month and year-by-year.”
“And never put just one bottle of a given variety in the cellar. There is always a psychological barrier to opening the last bottle, and it will end up going bad before you drink it.”
For those who would purchase wine for investment purposes, be forewarned: Doing so can be a lot like the stock market. “Every year at the end of March or early in April, everyone in the trade goes to the Union des Grands Crus, which is essentially a barrel tasting of the vintage that was just harvested,” says Paul Cudone, wine manager at the Wine Source in Baltimore. “We taste the wines out of the barrel, where they will stay for another one-and-a-half years before they are bottled. We usually can tell which Bordeaux is going to be a great vintage … 2005 had the single greatest Bordeaux ever.”
Of course, Cudone adds that Robert Parker’s rating in his Wine Advocate will have a significant impact on those who are dealing in, for instance, Bordeaux futures. “Bob is very influential, although he did not expect to be,” says Cudone.
Photo courtesy Cheval Blanc and by deepix.com
What put Robert Parker on the wine map was when, in 1982, he recommended an entire vintage that all the other critics were panning. At the time, that first-growth was selling for an opening price of $450 a case. Now when it comes up for auction, it sells for a whopping $22,000 to $28,000 a case, says Cudone. “When his ratings come out in the [Wine] Advocate, we get a sense of what will be good.”
The ideal wines to buy as an investment include Margaux, Lafite, Mouton, Latour, Haut-Brion, Ausone, Petrus and Cheval Blanc.“These are the blue chip wines [often referred to as 'first growth'] when it comes to appreciating the most,” says Cudone. “After the vineyards release their prices, we purchase the wines from our suppliers and then our speculators buy from us. These are often people who have no intention of ever drinking the wine. While they will have to wait another 18 months to actually receive the wine, they will have plenty of places to auction it off later.”
However, for those who simply wish to unwind with a nice bottle, Pressman recommends not being intimidated by wine snobs. “Buy what you love in quantity and rely on your own personal preference,” he says. And, Cudone adds, one doesn’t have to spend an arm and a leg to have a wonderful experience. “There are many good wines for less than $20 a bottle,” he says. “You just need a retailer who has the experience to make good suggestions. While you can learn a lot by reading, actually tasting a vintage at the correct temperature and talking to the vintner or a knowledgeable retailer is the best way to educate yourself.”
When it comes to storing wine you intend to drink or hold for future sale, light, temperature, and humidity are variables best controlled. While wine refrigerators are good short-term solutions, serious collectors look to custom wine cellars for optimal long-term conditions. As for the design of wine cellars, perhaps an architect’s best skill is the ability to listen carefully to his client. “Each collector is unique,” says Jim Molinelli, an architect with ARDO Contracting. “I’m trained to ask questions and let my clients lead me. They know their interests and whether they want racks to hold cases instead of bottles, how many bottles they are planning, what needs to be seen and what does not.”
Clients also have to make decisions about the actual storage units. “We recently had a wine cellar that was a very long linear room adjacent to the home theatre and that had the entire collection on display,” says Molinelli. “If everything is visible at all times that will dictate to me the dimensions and the proportions of the room. One can have a large walk-in refrigerated cellar or one simple glass door that is one-layer deep.”
In addition to the cellar itself, architects are frequently called upon to design an adjacent room for enjoying one’s collection. “Most people want to have a station for decanting and serving their wine,” notes Molinelli. “One should have the appropriate stemware handy, as well as a fridge for keeping things cold…everything you need should be right there. Most wine cellars tend to be near some sort of public space for relaxing.”
In the course of designing a new home on the Eastern Shore of Maryland for clients Keith and Debbi Patten, Bob Hammond of Hammond Wilson Architects found himself being asked, somewhat as an afterthought, to design a wine cellar for the couple. “We ended up with a unit by Wine Trend, Inc.,” says Hammond. “There are companies that custom-make wine cellars and some of them even come with 30 percent of the cellar stocked with wine. This wine cellar can hold as many as 2,000 or so bottles.”
In the case of the Patten’s cellar, the manufacturer came in and assembled the cherry wood-finish unit. “This came with a heating and air-conditioning system, as well as with a computer to inventory the collection,” says Hammond. “This was relatively simple to accomplish without a lot of effort.”
Of course, when renovating a house with an existing wine cellar, the contractor has the additional challenge of maintaining security and climate control for the collection.
Not surprisingly, when a client notifies Hammond at the beginning of a project that he would like a wine cellar, Hammond has the luxury of more time. “Usually these clients want a more varied environment, often a grotto-like sitting area with a stone floor or a stone wall,” he says. “These can be really wonderful spaces.”
Mary Medland is a regular contributor to ChesapeakeHome.
Contacts:
ARDO Contracting, Inc.: ARDOinc.com or 410-290-9899
Chesapeake Wine Company: chesapeakewine.com or 410-522-4556
Cheval Blanc: chateau-cheval-blanc.com
Hammond Wilson Architects: hammondwilsonarchitects.com or 410-267-6041
Haut-Brion: haut-brion.com
Sub-Zero: subzero.com/winestorage or 800-222-7820
The Wine Cellar Company (Lisa Weiss): winecellarsbylisa.com or 703-992-WINE
The Wine Source: the-wine-source.com or 410-467-7777
Wine Trend, Inc.: winetrend.com or 804-935-7121
