Most wine lovers at some time have experienced cellar envy. It could be the contents, the location, or the features of the storage medium, but each has the ability to evoke feelings of envy and inadequacy. If you haven’t experienced that yet, then this book is for you!

This heavy coffee table book boosts beautiful photographs taken by Andrew French of some of the most over the top wine rooms you’ve ever seen. Samantha Nestor guides you through the journey from a beautiful closet cellar, to an outrageous room capable of storing more wine than any one could ever drink in two life times. One bottle a night, times 64 years (average lifespan – legal drinking age subtracted from the average life span), with leniency for gifts and sharing, a family of two would only need around 30,000 bottles of wine. Yet one of the cellars profiled has storage for 10 times that amount! Seems a bit excessive to me.

So the question arises, if you have the means, would you duplicate some of the efforts showcased in this book? After all, one of the great lessons in life is not having to learn from trial and error yourself, but letting others do that for you. So this book could be looked at as a guide to creating your own cellar by duplicating an effort, or pillaging the best ideas from cellars throughout the book. Most have hired professional designers to help implement their custom vision or adapt their style to the space allowed. It all comes back to personal preference.

This must have been a fun book to work on; sneaking into Oenophiles homes to take a peak at what only their closest friends get to see, listening to stories of what intrigued them about wine in the first place and how their love culminated into what you see today. The willingness to share prized bottles always impresses me about wine lovers, and I’m guessing Samantha was able to imbibe on quite a few fantastic bottles through this process.

You can purchase the book from Amazon here:

Living with Wine: Passionate Collectors, Sophisticated Cellars, and Other Rooms for Entertaining, Enjoying, and Imbibing

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Full Disclaimer: This book was sent to me as a press sample

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