Do you have a drink problem? Sorry, let me rephrase that. Do you have a problem where to store your wine collection due to a lack of space in the house? This is an increasingly common predicament especially in London’s Victorian terraced houses.
Every year we drive to a different region of France and bring back as many bottles of the local wine as possible. Not as many as we’d like, to be honest, given they have to compete for space with children’s bikes, luggage and flea market treasure! Some bottles are consumed within weeks but there are others which deserve to be stashed away for a special occasion. So over the years a nice collection builds up occupying all of the dark cool spaces in the house. Sound familiar? Its not an ideal situation but what else can you do? Well, an ideal solution and a growing trend is to install sunken wine cellars.
Sunken Wine Cellar in new Side Return Extension
There are two options when it comes to sunken wine cellars – the spiral type which which can be sunk into a specially excavated hole under ground level (costing in the region of £15,000 to £20,000). Or building larger versions which are effectively mini-basements (costing from £25,000 to £35,000). Build Team have just completed a stunning sunken wine cellar for one of our clients in Abbeville, London SW4.
Sunken wine cellar dug to 2.5m depth and shuttered ready to receive reinforced concrete.
A concrete-clad, fully tanked basement wine cellar was built directly beneath our client’s new Side Return Extension. Accessed via a recessed tiled, trap door operated via gas-lift struts (similar to those you find on your car boot) the wine cellar holds in excess of 540 bottles of wine racked in oak cabinetry, and in addition, sliding shelves to accommodate full cases. There is also room for a tasting table, and the cellar is illuminated by way of energy efficient, low heat output LED lighting.
Side Elevation & Section
And finally, the optimum temperature? Well, it’s a fairly constant 15-16 degrees centigrade all year round, with 70% humidity. The perfect ambient temperature to store, preserve and enjoy grande vins de France. Click here to see the full project gallery.
