The Wine Room: Creating Amazing Spaces For Wine Lovers

At The Wine Room, they design, manufacture and install beautiful yet technical wine cellars across South Africa, as well as offer an extensive range of wine cellar and bar appliances and accessories; modular display products; and specialist climate control solutions. This means you can create an amazing space to enjoy life and entertain in style.

We caught up with Lauren Snyman from The Wine Room to find out more…

What is a must-have piece or feature within the space you design?

A central display shelf with hidden yet strategically-positioned lighting is a must in any cellar or wine wall display. This is somewhere to position that special large-format bottle of wine, or a hand-blown crystal wine decanter.

Your key principles when creating a visual space for a wine cellar?

The key principles we take into account when designing a wine cellar or wine wall are materials, lighting, glazing, temperature and humidity; as well as capacity (i.e. how many bottles of wine are needed); and budget.

The first surprising question we ask our clients when designing a cellar is: “Roughly, how many bottles of wine would you like to display or cellar?”. This may seem an obvious question. However, it is so critical in determining the “look and feel’ of a wine display. The same space can be designed as a high-capacity, cost-effective storage solution; or a low-capacity; big-budget wall feature. It all depends on what the client needs.

How does lighting play a role?

Lighting is critical in a wine cellar! Positioning lighting carefully in relation to bottles helps to create the right mood. This also helps to avoid shadows and allows the client to view the labels on the bottles.

Conversely, natural sunlight is a big no-no in wine cellars, together with heat and UV light. The only lighting we use in our cellars is low-heat-emitting LED lighting.

What about temperature control in a wine cellar?

Wine needs to be cellared at the correct temperature and humidity conditions if you are planning on keeping it for a medium to long-term period of time. The temperature in your cellar should be maintained at a constant temperature anywhere between approx. 13-17 degrees. and the humidity should ideally be between approx. 60-75% RH. If your temperature fluctuates or exceeds the above temperature, your wine is at risk of getting damaged. If your cellar humidity drops too low over a long period of time, the wine can also oxidise.

Any collaborations you are working on?

The Wine Room is currently working with a number of Interior Designers in both Cape Town and Johannesburg on full-turnkey residential wine cellar projects. This includes timber and steel wine displays, cellar-graded glazing, insulation, lighting, climate control and appliances.

What do you hope people will feel when in they enter one of your Wine Rooms?

We hope our clients feel as if they are walking into an art gallery where wine is the art! It is beautiful to look at and creates a stunning wall display. Our wine cellars should wow our clients visually, yet it is always equally important for our premium clients to be assured that their wine is being perfectly cellared. Many of our clients require their wine cellar to preserve large investment-collections of wines and keeping the cellars at optimum conditions is critical.

What inspires you?

I’m inspired by understated, elegant and natural spaces – be that an interior of a home, or a wide vista in nature, breathing in the natural air and taking in the view. This forms such an important inspiration for our wine cellars, where we need to balance accommodating hundreds of ‘busy’ bottles in a beautifully-curated and balanced space.

What do you do in your free time?

Anything that involves a combination of good coffee; a good book; paging through interior magazines; and spending time on Cape Town’s greenbelts, mountain or the South peninsula’s wide open beaches.

Places you love to explore both local and abroad?

Abroad – it’s the materials, aromas, food and people of India; as well as European villages and winding laneways steeped in History that I love to explore.

What is your favourite wine?

I love a Brut Champagne or Method Brut Cap Classique. My wine is like my coffee – it must be of the highest quality, offered at the perfect temperature and savoured, with gratitude, in a beautiful setting.