Nestled right between Tin Hau and North Point MTR stations, and close proximity to Causeway Bay, Happy Valley and Tai Hang is a brand new, private neighborhood wine storage facility called Vintage Cellars Warehouse.

We reported about the open invitation launch last week, and now we’ve put together a video featuring Vintage Cellars partner Raiford Cockfield giving Winebuzz a private tour of the new facility on opening day.

What we saw impressed us: a climate and temperature controlled facility, card and facial recognition scanners at key access points, motion-detectors on all the lights, lavishly decorated storage areas at many different sizes – where you can store anything from a few cases to a few hundred and the option to also buy wine directly from the cellar, an open area for private functions and dinners all tucked away in the Victoria Centre.

Stop by anytime to see if it fits your wine storage needs – we have a feeling this pocket in Tin Hau is going to wine central station very soon:

HD version:

YouTube version:

Vintage Cellars is at 1/F Victoria Center, 15 Watson Road, Tin Hau, Hong Kong.

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Vintage Cellars is the first cellar of its kind to open up in Tin Hau and Winebuzz.hk readers are invited to their Grand Opening on June 8, to view the facility and to taste some of Altruistic’s carefully selected premium wines from the States.

Vintage Cellars is a wine storage facility brought to you by the people from Altruistic Boutique Wines. The cellar is one of many neighbourhood cellars to come which aims to provide the flexibility for clients of Altruistic’s clients to “store anything from a few cases to a few hundred and the option to also buy wine directly from the cellar,” said Raiford Cockfield, CEO of Altruistic Boutique Wines.

The facility offers one of the most convenient ways to store wines in a city where apartment size is small and storage is often a problem. Vintage Cellars features round-the-clock access, is located right next to the MTR line and – get this – has facial recognition for security. How hi-tech is that? This means that only you or a designated person can pick up your wines. Exclusive!

Winebuzz.hk readers are invited to view the new facility at the grand opening on June 8^th. Come by and taste some wines with canapes from 5.30pm to 10pm. There’s even a special “early adopter” rate for those who join early and the first 15 guests to arrive will receive “Soiree” Decanters as gifts.

Details:

• Date: June 8^th, 2011
• Time: 5.30pm -10pm
• Location: 1/F Victoria Center, 15 Watson Road, Tin Hau, Hong Kong (Tin Hau MTR Station, just after Causeway Bay)

Wines Featured at Opening Night:

• 2008 Six Sigma – Michael’s Sauvignon Blanc

Oak fermented, with aromas of almonds and spice and flavors of apricot and pear, with a silky finish.

• 2008 Kelley & Young Kathleen Rosé

This Bordeaux style rosé is made from a combination of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot. It is light but rich at the same time with strawberry and guava notes. A beautiful lush round mouth feel but no harsh tannins and a touch of oak on the finish. Excellent pairing with grilled salmon, pork and vegetables.

• 2006 O’Brien Seduction

(50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot)

This deep opaque wine is a Bordeaux-style blend. With brooding aromas of spicy black cherry and cassis, the flavors are more focused on pure wild berry, black cherry fruit with light cedar oak notes. A gorgeous coating of spicy tannins that is firmly seductive! This is a wine that will age for 10 years or more. Aged in French oak – 70% new oak. 2,500 cases produced

• 2005 PB Hein Trailblazer Syrah

Dark garnet in color and aromas of black cherries and smokiness, this wine is a pleasant and approachable wine with deep blackberry and dried fruit flavors on the palate. Medium bodied with some richness, structure and solid tannins. 338 cases produced

‘How long should I cellar this wine?’ is one of the most asked questions when one is selecting, buying, cellaring and drinking wine. We found this article from Snooth, written by Gegory Dal Piaz that provides a great guide about cellaring wines from France, their characteristics, how long you should cellar them, and their average price range.

Bordeaux: The world’s most famous wines, based primarily on Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Cellar from 3-40 years, US$10-$1000.

White Burgundy: White burgundy is primary a Chardonnay-based wine. Certainly many age-worthy whites are produced, though stylistic changes may make them less durable than in the past. 3-30 years, US$25-$1000.

Red Burgundy: is Pinot Noir and is usually a fickle wine, stubbornly resistant to falling into a rhythm; in particular when any one bottle might be open or closed for business. 3-50 years, US$25-$1000

Wines of Southern Rhone: Mostly Chateauneuf du Pape and Grenache-based. Not only has the style of many wines changed from somewhat rustic, if complex, to super-clean and packed with fruit and alcohol, but prices have sky-rocketed. 3-25 years, US$25-$600.

Beaujolais: has really grown into a respectable region over the past two decades. In the past, the yoke of crappy Beaujolais Nouveau had kept interest here at a minimum but small producers have created some ageworthy Cru Beaujolais masterpieces. 3-20 years, US$12-$50.

Champagne: Champagne is a cellarable wine! In fact, few wines benefit from cellaring as much as Champagne. Most non-vintage blends are rushed to market and improve with a few years in the cellar, gaining depth, complexity and a bit of creaminess. 3-35 years, US$25-$1000.

Read more

photo source: Lane Crawford

Sub-Zero, a company that specializes in producing top of the line refrigerators and wine storage, has come up with a luxe mobile bar called the ‘The Mobile Mini Wine Bar‘.  This  wine storage unit comes equipped with separate compartments for red and white wine, glass racks and even a cherry-wood cheeseboard! It can be moved anywhere you want to have a wine bar, making entertaining at home a breeze. The Mobile Mini Wine Bar is a limited production unit and is available exclusively at Lane Crawford.

photo source: Lane Crawford

How much?

HK$175,000

Where to buy?

Lane Crawford, Pacific Place Home Store. Shop 126, Pacific Place, 88 Queensway, Admiralty
tel: 2118 3668

We sat down with Vinfolio Hong Kong Managing Director Anthony Mak last week to talk about Vinfolio’s Hong Kong plans. After the recent announcement of the company’s series A US$4.5 million investment and their expansion into the Hong Kong market, we thought Hong Kong wine enthusiasts would like to know there will be a new major player entering the market in the next couple of months.

Mr. Mak is in heavy preparations for the Hong Kong launch of Vinfolio.hk – the website will be in English and Chinese. The company has held off on launching their online wine shop until now because of the recent economic downturn. Vinfolio Hong Kong will also launch a new Hong Kong wine storage operation and online wine auction component early next year.

Their auction service launched in July in the US, and has many Hong Kong users, and is different to the eBay model where its seller-to-buyer with no intermediary. Vinfolio’s auction service has them in the middle brokering the deal for wines ranging from small quantities of wine in the US$50/bottle price and higher.

UPDATE 10/06:

Vinfolio CEO Steve Bachmann just posted new information on their Hong Kong plans on the Vinfolio site:

In short, Vinfolio Hong Kong will essentially become a local wine store to Hong Kong/Macau residents. No overseas shipping need be arranged and no minimum purchase quantity will apply. We will list all available items in a new “Vinfolio Hong Kong” listing on Winesearcher, WinePrices.com, and Global Wine Stocks.

Of course, our U.S. online wine store will continue to be available to Hong Kong customers if they prefer and the Vinfolio Marketplace will continue to be there exclusively. Just keep in mind that those prices are in U.S. dollars for pick-up/delivery in San Francisco so onward shipping costs to Hong Kong are extra (whereas this is already included in HK site pricing). U.S. purchases come with six months free storage in one of our climate-controlled facilities. Initially, we will not ship to other countries from Hong Kong so customers in other Asian countries will need to continue to order from the U.S. site or make their own arrangements from Hong Kong

You can read the rest here.

Hubert Li opened the Hong Kong Wine Vault nearly two years ago where he was able to turn his love of wines into a profitable profession: a 5-floor, 30,000 square feet wine-storage facility. “We originally started the business for our own use,” Mr Li beams. “But we have expanded because demand for such facilities has been so great. My partners had quite a lot of wine stored abroad, but the removal of the wine tax meant they wanted to bring it all here, so they could see it and sample it when they wanted.’’ The storage facility is in Wong Chuk Hang, just outside the Aberdeen Tunnel currently has only 3/5 floors in use while maintaining it’s current 40 clients. The entire facility has 150 cellars and a storage capacity of 150,000 bottles.

Li says that this is all due to removing the wine duty. Li says that they never would have entered the business without this but is delighted at how things have been turning out.

“Our customers are highly knowledgeable …and people …now can have their collections close to them. The industry here is booming;”

Gregory De’eb, General Manager of Crown Wine Cellars, Hong Kong’s first wine storage facility agrees with this notion.

“A lot of the wines flowing into Hong Kong are not for consumption. And strange as that may sound, that is a good thing. They are coming in for wine storage, for wine cellaring, and that has meant a much greater need for an expansion of the industry. The wine has to be kept somewhere, and you have to then support that industry…”

Click here to read the full story at hktdc.com

With so many Hong Kongers collection wine in Hong Kong, we at Winebuzz have been looking at the different options available in Hong Kong: starting with SC Storage. SC Storage is the biggest self storage provider in Hong Kong with over 6,000 mini storage rooms, in 22 different locations with delivery time to you in 12-24 hours. And now they turn their attention to storing wine.

With all the temperature and environment controlled technology in place, you can store anything from 5 cases to 50 cases of wine at their wine-specific location in Wong Chuk Hang. We recently had a chat with Mr. Kevin She, the Chief Executive Officer of SC Storage about the operation and his view at the future of wine in Hong Kong:

How did you get into the wine storage business?
I started the wine storage business because our main business Self Storage is not growing as fast as before. However, we’ve noticed many wine shops and distributors popping up everywhere near our storage areas, and after noticing that the tax was removed (in Hong Kong from wine), we believe that the wine storage will be a natural extension and next phase of growth for us.

Have you seen a growth in your business since the tax removal last year?
Yes, we currently only have 1 site with wine storage of 5,000 sq ft, and that place is 90% full. We are re-modeling our storage site in Tsuen Wan into wine storage next month. So yes the wine storage growth is almost 25% faster then our storage growth. We only started this business November last year, so I assume the tax removal is related.

In an estimation what is your biggest customer and what is your smallest customer?
Our big customers would be middle sized wine distributors, they usually rent a 150-200 sq ft room because their warehouse is overstocked or they are using our storage as their warehouse.

A small customer or end user/consumer who likes to collect wine and just cannot store so many in his/her house, they rent a small size locker from us (about HK$400/sq ft) and they can store 4-5 boxes. It is still worth it because the wine they collect increases in prices so fast.

Why Wong Chuk Hang? Is it a special area for the environment?
Wong Chuk Hang is within 15 minutes driving distance from the middle/high end consumers from Happy Valley, Mid-levels, and Aberdeen. They are also many wine retailers that we are working with at this area.

What are your expansion plans in Tsuen Wan going to be? Is it a different place or just more space?
Expanding to Tsuen Wan is based on numerous customers feedback who want to store their wine on Kowloon Side. The construction will be similar to our Wong Chuk Hang storage, and the property is wholly owned by our company so their won’t be threat of landlord taking the place back.

Are most of your clients from HK or overseas? if so where?
80% of our customers are in Hong Kong, the overseas customers are from China whom often come to HK but can not bring back so much wine when they go back to China. So its cheaper for them to store with us and retrieve it next time they are in Hong Kong.

Where do you see the wine storage business in this time of economic recession?
As we are priced as one of the lowest cost wine storage provider in Hong Kong, it has benefited us as customers wants to save money while getting quality storage. Wine is a luxury item and an investment item, so it has been affected by the recession, however I believe we are in the last phase of the recession, so the futures looks bright.

Where do you see the wine storage business in 2010?
With the Wine market growing at 60-70% a year, I believe that wine storage will provide great opportunities for us. Since many our wine storage locations are next to MTR stations and next to residential districts , I think we are uniquely position and much opportunities awaits.

Read more about SC Storage’s wine storage service here.