Luxury wine rooms are the latest home design trend, says supplier

Highlights

More fine wine lovers are choosing to show off their most prized bottles by commissioning luxurious wine rooms and wall displays in their own houses, suggest new sales figures for a company that makes them, Spiral Cellars.

Ornate wine rooms and wall displays have become a luxury must-have for many wealthy wine collectors and enthusiasts, according to Spiral Cellars, one of several companies offering a bespoke design and installation service and which has reported strong sales.

It has seen overall sales rise from £1 million a decade ago to £5 million in 2016, and it expects double-digit growth this year.

Spiral Cellars made its name on compact storage areas built around a spiral staircase descending from kitchens, living rooms and even garages, but it installed 200 wine rooms last year.

‘It’s a huge growth area for us,’ said Lucy Hargreaves, MD and owner of Spiral Cellars. ‘People want to show off their collection a lot more,’ she told Decanter.com in an interview.

Prices aren’t cheap, starting at around £30,000 for typical wine room.

Credit: Spiral Cellars.

Hargreaves said that she believed people are increasingly inspired by travel when it comes to home design.

‘Our clients travel a lot and there are more restaurants and hotels today with proper wine displays. The wines are not just hidden at the back.’

Collecting, drinking and trading wines has also gone mainstream in 21st Century Britain, making cellars more of a normal home feature, Hargreaves believes.

The home is also more of an ‘entertainment space’ than before, she said, echoing a trend referenced frequently by market research companies, retailers and drinks producers.

To take advantage of its momentum, Spiral Cellars is launching free-standing, wine cabinets this year as new home cellar option. It also launched a cellar re-location service late last year, which includes an offer to document and itemise everything in the cellar.

Hargreaves said that cellars sizes and designs vary, but the company recently fitted a cabinet into a one-metre wide alcove that can hold around 100 bottles. A typical wine room could hold between 200 and 300 bottles.

Some people go for combinations. ‘We did a spiral cellar, wine room and a cigar room for one client for £150,000,’ Hargreaves said.

A spiral cellar can hold more than 1,000 bottles with prices starting from just over £19,000. Starting prices for wine walls are around £20,000 to £25,000, while cabinets and wine wardrobes cost less, the company said.