Cellar
6 min read
Sixty-two metres of quiet
A walk through the galleries: who carved them, why they stay at eleven degrees and what the light switches are for.
Written by
Arnaud Vellard
Cellar master
The galleries under the hill were cut by hand in the 1890s, when the first vintage of the estate needed somewhere cool to wait. They run sixty-two metres into the limestone and have never needed a machine to stay at eleven degrees.
Why the lights are off
Light and vibration are the enemies of a resting wine. Each niche has its own switch, and the lights come on only when someone walks in to taste or to turn the bottles. It is the moment our visitors remember most.
What lives where
The cellar is organised by how long each wine needs to rest.
sparkling wine on its lees at the far end, where nothing moves
reds in barrel along the middle gallery
the library of old vintages in the niches by the door
When you visit, we walk to the end of the gallery in the dark and switch the niches on one by one on the way back. Every bottle you see has been waiting for at least two years.
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