apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

for some reason I find the thought of wine thieves stalking the cellars and sewers of Paris insanely funny. Nevertheless, an elegant solution to an inelegant problem.

Sacre bleu -- you MUST stop torturing us with these visions of life en Paris -- je voudrais beaucoup a vivir en Paris maintenant!

A wonderful "perk" to your apartment -- and cheers to utilizing it to embrace your land's culinary heritage! Bravo!

So.....are you just trying to make me jealous? :(

ahhhh, une cave!

Actually, in Chicago there are alot of high end condominiums putting temperature and humidity controlled wine cellars with a tasting room. Every owner has the opportunity to reserve their own space in the storage area. I guess that's what you get for monthly assessments between 1500k and 3000k.

I would save up my allowance for a Liebherr built-in dual temp wine cooler until I am fortunate enough to own my own house with basement.

Sorry for the rambling but it's nice to realize that just because many people take wine seriously doesn't mean they have to be snots and/or rich snots. In France everybody (o.k. maybe not everybody) of all walks of life appreciate wine so even if it's a little corner of the basement with wooden shelves and a padlock door it's still a cave. It's all about taking care of something that is symbolic, alive and shared with your friends and family. And the cave doesn't have to be stocked with vintage bordeaux, it could be whatever you can afford plus splurges, plus gifts, plus whatever you picked up on vacation, plus................

I have a storage space in the basement of my condo building that would be perfect for wine storage. I'm pretty sure I could store wine in cardboard boxes and no one would be the wiser. But I'm not a collector.

Pretty much all of the Paris posts have made me start wondering if there's any way I can move to Paris. But a wine cave?? Of my own? I think I'm in love.

I'm a new Paris apt owner, just starting on my renovations, and I LOVE the cave! As a New Yorker, suddenly having a relatively large space to stick stuff in, oodles of stuff, is almost hallucinatorily wonderful.

The cool thing is that the cave in my building (an 18th or 19th century building in the Marais) is reached through a spiral stone staircase that gives out into the barrel-vaulted basement. I know it's probably because I'm a US geek, but I still get a thrill out of just how freakin' OLD the place is!

The other bonus: this last week has been ridiculously hot in Paris - mid 80's - and the cave is nice and cool.

I am so very jealous of the Parisians!

Most modern apartments in paris have a basement storage facility. It's amazing how much stuff you can put in this kind of rooms, mine is filled up with cases of books and a small "temporary" wine rack. I rent a bigger "cave" in a quarry outside of paris were the temperature is constant 12 Celsius and 80-90% humidity where I can store my thousand bottles. The paris "cave" is nice, but they are often burglarized and the temperature is quite fluctuating during the year especially when it's getting very hot. Most of them don't offer enough humidity (fortunately for the other stuff you might want to store there) as well.
I didn't know these basement units were not common outside of france though.
Huguenot Père & Fils is a nice and affordable burgundy producer. And you really need to visit le salon des vignerons indépendants à la porte de versailles if you are staying in paris around the end of november, it's spectacular if a bit crowded.

Whatever happened to talk of an ATParis?

Looks like we have quite a number of Parisian ATers who could offer lots of wonderful tips about that city.

Though I don't live there, visiting Paris is within my dreams, so it'll be great to be able to check out an ATParis before and during a trip.

BTW, very nice post, Kristin

I was just curious, is this the same as having a storage locker here in the U.S.? Our building has an area where you can have a nice sized place to store things. It is not like a personal 'cave' but a nice, big and secure area to store things.

I would love to know if the Parisian system is somehow different.

I will be honest, the ones in my building would not be very inviting as wine closets. I like the one above.

Why an ATParis and not an ATFrance? I used to live in Lyon, 2 hours south of Paris (via TGV) and, to tell you the truth, I like it much better than Paris (granted I did see Audrey Tautou on the street in front of an AWESOME little shop and had the pleasure of running smack into her - she is much smaller than she seems!). And there are so many cool things about the different cities in France that are unique to themselves. One thing about Lyon (among the many) is, right next door to the Stade Gerlain (sp, it's been a long time) is a little brewery/club/bar called NINKASI where they make their own beer, and all different kinds of it. They have little bars/cafes (same thing) peppered throughout the city where they each have a slightly different selection than the other of the beers brewed at the big NINKASI. I forgot to take pictures, but the interior is just AWESOME and I'll have to get my friends to send me some.

Anyway, I have a crawl space underneath my apartment that is moist (so we can't store a whole lot of stuff down there) and doesn't seem to get hot - what's the best temperature/space to store wine? It would be really cool to be able to use that space.

@elizabeth
Temperature in itself doesn't matter as much as temperature variations. It's better to have a space at 16 celsius all year round than a space which will fluctuate between 8 and 24 celcius.
Humidity, darkness, and the lack of chemical storage (paint) or vibrations (living near a railroad) are just about as important as a controled, low temperature.

@Matt
Yes, I guess so. Except it's under the building you are living in (you just need to take the staircase or the elevator to get there), it's included in the rent (or you buy an apartment with a cave) and the security is usually non existent (regular doors, no watch...etc). So, it's better not to leave valuable things in there, or use wine racks, as picking up bottles one by one is usually too long for thieves who prefer to take already packed cases lying around.

It didn't occur to me that burglaries would be common from the caves. To reach my cave, you'd have to get through a street door, a courtyard door, the door down into the caves, and finally the door to my cave. I suppose, then, that it would likely be an inside job.

The caves are just the basement separated by wooden partitions - mine isn't nearly so nicely finished as Mattias's is. Apparently, according to the notary who handled my purchase, the caves are one of the biggest pains in the neck when it comes to Paris real estate, because they're invariably associated with arguments about square footage (or metrage, I suppose). Indeed, I've been avoiding dealing with the issue with mine - it's shared space with a famous European actress, and the notary insisted that I should approach her and tell her we have to divide up the cave into mine and hers. I've been dreading bringing up the issue, particularly since the starstruck former tenant had promised the actress she'd take care of building the separation herself.

the best wine is not kept in cellars.
ever think about a message in a bottle?
some of the most obscure emotionfull wines are actually chilling in water.
think...(tie a string to sealed bottles and sinking them in a body of water, capable temperatures, bivi camp and geocaching)