GILES BURKE-GAFFNEY OF JUSTERINI & BROOKS
Liquid
GOLDMINE Wine storage might not be the most exciting subject for grape enthusiasts, but a visit to the UK’s largest underground wine store is a rare treat
By PENDLE HARTE
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escending 150 steps doesn’t sound like a big enough deal to require a self-rescuer. (What even is a selfrescuer?) But here we are, descending this long, straight slope slowly and carefully in single file, each of us obediently carrying a mandatory self-rescuer. You can’t be too careful, 100 feet below ground. Next to us is a railway track; the feeling is part theme-park ride, part post-apocalyptic survival situation, part disused tube station. We’re entering a Wiltshire mine, but the bounty here is wine, not the area’s original stone. For more than 30 years, the million square foot Octavian Vaults in Corsham, 10 miles northeast of Bath, have been home to around two billion pounds’ worth of the world’s finest
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