Renovators' dream cellar
Renovators' dream cellar
The leafy suburb of Parktown North is one of the older residential areas of Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. It boasts many gracious old houses that are being given a muchneeded facelift. Which is exactly what Ryan Harrison, MD of a chemical company, and his girlfriend, Donna Fitzsimmons, brand manager at Investec, decided to do to their home.
Barely a skeleton remains of the original 1935 turquoise and pink house, since the couple removed most of the internal walls during a six-month renovation process that ended in October 2009. What was originally an enclosed storage area with linoleum floors has been transformed into a wine-lover’s dream. This neat, ultra-modern 3x3m cellar, which is reminiscent of a beautiful restaurant cellar, leads off the kitchen and openplan living area, en route to the patio. It is conveniently positioned for indoor and outdoor entertainment.
“We would have loved to build our cellar underground, but it would have been too pricey,” says Ryan. “Anyway this seemed like the most obvious space, in terms of convenience and entertainment.”
Ryan was given a wine fridge as a birthday gift 10 years ago, which stimulated his interest in wine. “It was cool being able to store wine at the right temperature and it really made me enjoy wine so much more,” he recalls. “It was replaced by a 70-bottle wine fridge about four years ago, which seemed to fill up quite quickly, requiring even more space. It became an obvious decision to build a cellar when we moved into our new house.”
It took several visits to cellars, including those at restaurants such as The Butcher Shop & Grill and Browns, and quite some time, before they had finalised exactly what they wanted. Luckily for them, the contractor who built their kitchen also had experience in building wine cellars. The only hurdle the couple faced in building the cellar was the piping for an air-conditioning unit that they had installed, which did not fit the Daikin unit that they chose, so some restructuring work had to be done.
Although it was an extremely expensive choice, they decided to make the shelving in the cellar from the same Oregon pine as is used in the kitchen. “It was great to be able to follow through on a theme,” says Donna. “Once you decide to spend the money, you need to see how best to make use of the available space. We are very happy with the integrity of the final design.”
Ryan and Donna cleverly incorporated some old sliding doors from the original house, stripping down the wood and replacing the windows with frosted glass, which has made the doors a real feature of the cellar. They also removed the linoleum, restoring the floor to its original wooden glory, which complements the cellar beautifully. The diamond-shaped shelves were built at a warehouse and then fitted in the cellar. The shelves needed to be bolted in to support the considerable weight of the wine bottles. The cellar has the capacity to hold some 800 bottles, but it is not quite filled yet. Across the central wall is a display area for magnums and favourite wines, and shelves on the side wall house glasses and spirits and liqueurs.
“The cellar gives me the opportunity to buy wine and lay it down for some time… not that I’ve got to that point yet,” laughs Ryan. “The longest I’ve managed to leave a wine is my 2003 Meerlust and a Vergelegen V, which is about four or five years old.”
When asked how they choose which wines to purchase, Ryan’s immediate response is, “Whatever we like. We buy well-known brands that we’ve tasted before or heard about, that we know will last. We enjoy going to boutique wineries and buying wines we like. We try to get down to Cape Town at least once a year to visit areas we have not been to before. Two years ago we tasted wines from estates in the Bot River area and last year we went to Franschhoek. We go after the Dusi, so I get to indulge too!”
Ryan prefers white wines while Donna tends towards reds. “We generally buy about 15 cases at a time, and we try to go for wines that we haven’t come across in Joburg.” They are always on the lookout for opportunities, to find and taste new wines, a recent trip to Argentina having yielded several bottles of Malbec.
Although they refer to themselves as “drinkers not tasters”, the couple distinguish between two types of wine: good value, everyday drinking, which they buy from local bottle stores such as Liquor City, Checkers, Makro and Norman Goodfellows (www.ngf.co.za); and the wines that make their way onto a shelf in their cellar. “The cellar has driven our interest in wine,” says Donna.
“It is interesting to see how wines develop, even if we don’t keep them for 10 years. Ryan is even learning to enjoy aged whites!” At this stage wine remains a hobby. They don’t belong to a wine club, but they do enjoy attending private tastings and wine shows such as WineX and the Juliet Cullinan Wine Festival.
Some extra-special wines they have in the cellar, which are awaiting special occasions to be opened, include a bottle of 1998 Paul Sauer that was a gift from an ex-boss who is a wine collector, a few bottles of Stony Brook Ghost Gum Cabernet Sauvignon and a three-litre bottle of 2000 Meerlust Rubicon, which Donna won. Other favourites include Hamilton Russell, Fairview, Eben Sadie, Glen Carlou and Rust en Vrede, each offering wonderful memories of when and where they were bought.
TIPS FROM RYAN AND DONNA
- Know how many bottles your cellar can hold, and start saving now! You will hardly even notice the first few bottles you put into it. Cost is our biggest constraint, but it’s amazing how quickly you start enjoying the more expensive wines.
- Make the cellar practical, built for your own personal purpose and budget. An air-conditioning unit is very important to keep the temperature constant. Speak to the right person in this regard.
- Don’t be scared to experiment and to try wines other than the ones you are used to.
