245 Mallorca Way Kitchen
Purchased for $2,555,000 in 2002 but then extensively remodeled in 2009, at which point the temperature controlled wine room for 1,138 bottles was added, the four bedroom home at 245 Mallorca Way has returned to the market listed for $3,495,000.
245 Mallorca Way Wine Cellar
A few other numbers for 245 Mallorca Way: two car garage, three fireplaces, four and one-half baths, and a finished 3,676 square feet prior to the remodeling. Oh, and the seven televisions are included in the price but the chandelier in the dining room is not.
∙ Listing: 245 Mallorca Way (4/4.5) – $3,495,000 [sfproperties.com]

51 thoughts on “Take One Down, Pass It Around, 1,137 Bottles Of Wine On The Wall”
  1. Fantastic remodel and great house. Could have better flow with the master bedroom and spare bedroom that was turned into a closet. Adding another door to the master bath will solve that problem and should be an easy fix.

  2. I often think it would be great to live in a place like this, and could cash in some stock and nearly pull it off. But then you’re paying what…..3500 a month in property tax. No thanks.
    I’ll keep my little TIC turned condo where I’m only screwed out of 6k a year.
    We need to get this issue under control in California.

  3. Honest question – why does anyone need over a thousand bottles of wine in a cellar? Are they drinking that much, or is it more of a collectors mentality?
    Off topic – as I type this the right panel of chrome is now full of ads for wine cabinets. Creepy.

  4. Well, if property taxes are a problem, then this will probably not be a good fit. Expect long term maintenance on a 3.5M property to be in the same range.
    Plus I wouldn’t say you’re “screwed” by 6K of property taxes. You use the same infrastructures, schools, have the same benefits from the same protection (cops, firemen, disaster relief) as the guy who will pay his 3500/month and probably are more likely to use public schools and public transport than him. He’s the one being more “screwed”. You’re merely being charged for services rendered. You’ll be happy if you ever need them.

  5. lolcat_94123,
    Say you entertain often, drink 100+ bottles a year and prefer aged wine, 1000 slots will make sense. Of course, it’s better to store them in a real cellar in the dark, instead than a made-for-show space in your apartment. Nature provides the right conditions, underground.
    With the right management (and restraint) you can arrange a long-term storage of decent wines so that you purchase good bottles cheaper today and enjoy them in 5, 10 or 15+ years.
    There’s a pleasure to go to my small underground cellar in my second home (tenants have no access to the basement) and see bottles I forgot I had from 2002…
    It didn’t cost me much to kick-start my micro-selection but I am happy I have it and refill it every year. This is the only time when you appreciate seeing precious years go fast. I wish I had purchased 10 times more wine at the time.

  6. Or in the future, after you stock up and are having friends over for dinner, you can casually reach in and grab one of the bottles of 2000 Chateau Petrus that you’ve been storing for ten years.
    And then you can say to yourself, “I can sell this bottle at an online wine auction site right now for over twenty thousand dollars, or I can open it and serve it.” Wouldn’t it be nice to have that choice to make?

  7. lolcat wrote:
    > Honest question – why does anyone need over a
    > thousand bottles of wine in a cellar?
    I know a couple guys that actually need/use a 1,000+ bottle cellar since they are serious wine collectors with a hobby they love and are constantly buying and selling wine (not a day goes by when they do not think or talk about wine). The two guys I know also donate a lot of their time (and wine) to local charities that host annual wine auction fundraisers.
    Managing a collection of more than 1,000 bottles of wine is a huge job that most people just don’t have the time and energy to do on your own so you really have to pay someone to manage it for you. With most “collectable” wine selling for over $100 a bottle (and most of the 2010 first-growth Bordeaux futures over $1,000 a bottle) you are looking at a “collection” worth way more than $100K.
    Then lol wrote:
    > With the right management (and restraint) you can arrange a
    > long-term storage of decent wines so that you purchase good
    > bottles cheaper today and enjoy them in 5, 10 or 15+ years.
    I’ve cut back on the number of bottles of wine I keep at home for a number of reasons. The main reason is that more often than not I am disappointed with vintage wine. Most of the time it is “not as good” as I remember the vintage back around the release date and it is amazing how often it is “bad” and I have to pour it out (like a bottle of late 90’s Turley Zin that I recently found hidden between some Burgundies).
    > There’s a pleasure to go to my small underground cellar in my
    > second home (tenants have no access to the basement) and see
    > bottles I forgot I had from 2002…
    I got some pleasure collecting wine, but the pleasure was less than the bad feelings I felt when I opened a bottle of wine and thought “this would have been better three years ago” (or had to pour out a bottle that was bad). If you can get an extra $50 to $100 a month renting the place to the next tenants “with” the basement you can use the money to do what I do and buy interesting library wines (if you can’t find anything interesting at K&L, Cost Plus or Costco).
    P.S. My browser is showing me ads for Gregg Lynn, Vinotemp Wine Storage, The Brannan and Cpmpact Appliance Wine Storage…

  8. “If you can get an extra $50 to $100 a month renting the place to the next tenants “with” the basement…”
    Though you might want to be careful about including too much storage space in a rental property as it encourages your tenants to accumulate stuff. Chances are that when they ultimately move their new place will have less storage space and they might leave some stuff behind. And they always leave the “best” stuff. In other words expect to find a broken down lazy boy lounger rather than a case of 2010 first-growth Bordeaux.
    At least ensure that your lease contract stipulates that tenants are responsible to remove all of their possessions and are liable for the cost of disposing of anything left behind. Figure about $200-300 per pickup truck load to hire a disposal crew, more if significant stairs are involved.
    ——————
    As for the wine storage ads appearing on the right that’s triggered by the Adsense scanning of the content here which mentions wine storage several times (hey, one more!) What is more creepy is when the ads pertain to something else you’ve been searching outside of Socketsite. I can’t get rid of the ads for Barry Manilow concert DVDs and hedgehog costumes. So instead I just click into them once and a while which sends a few pennies towards Socketsite. Ka-ching and the Socketsite team has a little more cash to invest into content.

  9. 1000 bottles of wine sounds like a lot if you think they’re all different, but people who store this much wine tend to buy it by (at least) the case.

  10. @TMoD
    I can’t get rid of the ads for Barry Manilow concert DVDs and hedgehog costumes.
    Ha! I almost spit out my mouthful of first-growth Bordeaux!

  11. Thanks folks, these answers make sense. I have a bar that stores about 40 bottles and even that seems like too much at times (I’ve done the same huff when pouring out a bottle I kept for too long).
    But what do I know – I’m the guy at the winery tastings that asks which varietal goes best with pop tarts and finely-aged kraft singles.

  12. “I’m the guy at the winery tastings that asks which varietal goes best with pop tarts and finely-aged kraft singles.”
    Without specifying frosted or plain? Fruit or cinnamon? Crucial info needed for proper pairing.
    Amateur!

  13. FAB,
    I stick with proven “vin de garde” like some Bourgognes and Bordeaux. Nothing fancy, sub-$50 a bottle but decent Gault and Millaud ratings after 2-4 years so that experts have had the time to have a sharper opinion on the cru. I am totally amateurish in this regard.
    One out of 5 doesn’t turn out as I expected. 3 are decent. One makes the exercise really worth it. Plus there’s nothing like bringing cobwebs and dust from your far away cellar to your dinner table 😉
    I am not fond of wine cabinets because I consider them “impress your guests” power hogs. Real cellars cost nothing in upkeep and have been doing the job for centuries. Plus they’re perfect for passive collecting if it takes too much of an effort to get to them easily.

  14. I guess I don’t quite understand. If you’re ruining 1 out of 5 bottles due to temperature variation in a natural cellar, then a wine cabinet would pay for itself in short order. Especially if you’re storing expensive (> $200 per bottle) or very expensive (> $1,000 per bottle) wines, as I assume the seller of this place is/was.
    maybe you meant that 1 out of 5 bottles just didn’t meet your expectations because you opened it past peak. I’ve never personally had that problem.

  15. Some wine is meant to be aged and some is not. You have to buy the stuff meant to be aged or lots of it will go bad. FAB, you’re buying the wrong wines.
    My storage is a non-temperature controlled storage space. Cheap cheap cheap, and nothing has ever gone bad on me in it. I have some bottles more than 20 years old. Even the 15 year old cabernets (which will normally not go past 10 years) are doing just fine. If you buy right, they last. The wine cabinets have very little to do with success. My storage fluctuates between 55 and 78 degrees, and I’ve never had a problem. The wine is kept in big camping coolers, full of bottles, so that the temperature fluctuations are very very slow.
    When you find the right one at the right price, you don’t buy it by the case, you call five big wine stores all over the country and tell them to ship you everything they have, and that’s how you end up with that many bottles, but I don’t think I’ve ever paid more than $45 a bottle, and I can assure you that drinking a 15 year old bottle of the right $35 wine is far far better than anything you can buy at the wine store for $100 and drink tonight. They also make incredible gifts, yet didn’t cost very much.
    I have about 500 bottles at any given time, but good lord, you really don’t need them right in front of you. That space would be better served doing almost anything else.

  16. Brahma: Where did you deduct they were spoiled by temperature variation? Plus $200 bottles? Again you’re making wild assumptions. Very few experts can really enjoy $200 wine (I’m talking wine bought at a retailer, not a restaurant 300% mark-up). Many will buy them and not notice much difference with a $20 wine purchased right. I am one of those, but can taste when a wine has been aged.
    Wine is not a perfect science. Not all bottles in a case will turn out the same. Most of the time you can’t know for sure why the one bottle didn’t pan out. Long term storage has its risks. It’s very tricky. Some collectors will pay 10,000s at auctions for 1966 gems from the greatest caves only to realize they have a taste of cork and vinegar. Ouch.
    Good wine is an art, not a consumer product, and risk is part of the game.

  17. Of course I buy it! lots of good stuff at Trader Joes. We all know that.
    Keep it around? well, I keep my whites chilled, if that’s what you mean. Drinking wine every week means you don’t really “keep it around”.

  18. I agree that there is lots of good stuff at Trader Joes. Maybe it’s just me but I can’t stand 2buckchuck. The box wine at TJ’s is way better. They have a $8 Cline that I like.

  19. I was just using the term “2 buck chuck” as a generic way of saying low priced/well priced wines.
    Tons of good stuff at TJ’s and WF.
    And they all love my Sub-zero.:)

  20. tipster writes:
    >My storage fluctuates between 55 and 78 degrees, and I’ve never had a problem. The wine is kept in big camping coolers, full of bottles, so that the temperature fluctuations are very very slow.
    on 10 year+ holds? really? I’ve found that warmish but constant temperatures (say mid 60s) age wine fast and that warmer temps are wine death. nothing would make me happier than using coolers instead of a eurocave, but has anyone else had success with this method?

  21. I often use the same cooler technique though for beer. When packed full of bottles it has a lot of thermal inertia. The cooler sits outside in the shade and the temp seems to run at about the average of the daily high and the nightly low. As a bonus most of the year the beer is at a proper British cellar temperature whereas my fridge would have kept it too cold. So far the teenagers next door haven’t discovered this unlocked stash. And the raccoons don’t seem to be interested.

  22. Whatever happened to that Albion castle located in the demilitarized zone? Probably great booze storage in the rock caves underneath.

  23. Yes I use that technique for beer storage too. It’s called the, “too lazy to bring the cooler in after the barbecue” storage system.

  24. “It’s called the, “too lazy to bring the cooler in after the barbecue” storage system.”
    Funny, that’s how I stumbled across the no-ice cooler method. Now I do it intentionally.

  25. lol, thanks for setting me straight. Of course you’re right: I was making assumptions. Still, I don’t think they were too out of line for the (and I’m switching subjects here…) the seller of 245 Mallorca Way.
    The seller probably spent a good five figures on the portion of the remodel devoted to the wine storage room alone. If he or she spent that amount to store their wine, they’ll probably be storing expensive, and probably very expensive, wines in it.
    I’m not saying that a high price denotes a higher quality wine, either. There are a lot of smaller vineyards from all around California that produce inexpensive, but fantastic, wines. One of the reasons that they are inexpensive is because they have not been “discovered” by the people with lots of disposable income who bid up the price. I’m sure the same is true for lots of places around the world, but I don’t have a lot of experience with those vintners.
    I also agree with you that there are few people who aren’t trained sommeliers or wine makers that can taste the difference between a $200 bottle and a $20 wine purchased right and aged.
    I don’t have the critical theory chops to do even a good spoof of deconstruction, but if I did I’d start with the fact that wine is a beverage of pleasure, and so spending that kind of money (granted, in a $3.5M home) on a room to store wine says something about the owner and his/her guests.
    He or she not only wants to store the wine in a controlled environment, but since the room is above ground, well-lit and can’t easily be missed when walking through the home, he or she wants the wine and the room it’s stored in to be seen by (presumably well heeled) visitors.
    That’s the reason I think there are very few, if any, bottles of Yellow Tail here and probably a lot of highly acclaimed Bordeaux.
    In other words, this is just another form of conspicuous consumption and the wine is a Veblen good. The current owner was in all probability definitely trying to “impress his guests” and that was a large part of the point of creating this room.

  26. “since the room is above ground, well-lit and can’t easily be missed ”
    It is in the basement next to the garage.. your well heeled visitors would have to seek it out to see it.

  27. Being in the basement, it’s probably the posh version of a man cave. Let the wives talk in the kitchen and get the guys downstairs to oooh and aaah at the great bottles. Collectors probably have stories about how they found their most precious gems.
    I am not sure it is that conspicuous though. After all it has a real function probably befitting the lifestyle of the person who designed it. I say good for the person who enjoys it. Please drink responsibly…

  28. From what I’ve read, somewhere around 54 degrees or so is a good cellar temp, but Robert Parker , who is experienced ut y no means the only worthy opinio , says he’s had great wines aged at a steady 70.
    From experience, Ive had several bottles of age-worthy wine aged forty years in a passive subterranean cellar, and they were phenomenal. But you have to like aged wine, or you’ll just shrug your shouldeds at all the fuss. The magnums surprisingly retained some fruit. Some folks don’t like aged wine, and most wines aren’t age worthy. If you like aged wine, it’s pretty awesome to uncork ( although usually messy) an earthy ’66 or ’70 or ’90 and drink something older than you. Its even better to drink these when they have been in the hands of one owner for forty years and were purchased for $5 or less.
    Speaking of the barely drinkable $2 chuck, you could get ’70 lynch bages for $2 in the early 70s on the east coast when nobody really cared about it here. “worth” hundreds now.

  29. I also was under an incorrect impression about what makes a particular wine mid or high-priced at the retail level. Apparently the economic downturn changed things; from the Wall Street on Journal on Jan 20, 2011, Snooty? Not Today’s Wine Drinkers:

    The economic downturn was toughest for the U.S. wineries that sell wines for $20 a bottle and up. After switching to less-expensive wines in the downturn, many consumers are staying at those lower prices because they liked what they found, industry executives and analysts say.

    Mid-priced bottles are the life of the party. Last year, unit sales of wines priced at $9 to $12 a bottle rose 12%…a faster growth rate than in other price segments…”The market is looking for fairly priced wines,” said Chris Howell, general manager at Cain Vineyard & Winery in St. Helena, Calif. Consumers “have woken up to the fact that there are a lot of choices out there.” He said he doesn’t expect consumers to pay the kinds of prices they paid before the economic downturn. “It’s not ever going to be what it was,” he said.

    Nodding to the new mentality, the winery recently reduced the retail price of its Cain Five brand, a Cabernet blend, to $100 from $125 a bottle.

    So I guess that the over $20 level is now the new high-end since $12 is the new mid-priced bottle. What gets me is that $20 for most widely-available California wines gets your something pretty pedestrian nowadays and I’m not at all a wine snob.
    I still don’t think that the seller of this place is stocking the above-shown wine room with lower-priced bottles, however. The “many consumers” referred to in the wsj article aren’t putting $3.5M homes on the market.

  30. For my dinner table w/o guests I’m usually drinking the $2-5 bottle from TJ’s but if I’m having guests I splurg for the $8-12 bottle from TJ’s. On rare special occassionals I’ll break out a bottle of something I bought at a winery for about $20.

  31. Rillion,
    With a bit of research, you could spend the same kind of money on your $8-20 picks and get them to mature for no cost at all (except the use of an under-utilized basement). Then you’d drink $50 wines in 10 years! All you need is kick-start your collection for the first few years, jumping on good deals / when the vintage is really good.

  32. My local wine store always has a 6 for 60 deal, where you get 13-18 dollar bottles for ten. I usually go for that, ocassionally grab something at TJ’s or Safeway for less. That is unless anon.ed is coming over then it’s nothing but the best for that wine snob.

  33. Lol – yeah but that would require 1) time spent researching 2) a place to store the wine and 3) the patience to not drink it for 10 years. I’ll address those points in order:
    1) – I’m lazy, so doing the research would be a problem.
    2) – I share a 816 sq ft condo in SF with two other people, no room here for a place to lay bottles down for any length of time and my place up in the mountains often gets down to near freezing as we don’t keep it heated while we are not there.
    3) – So far the longest I’ve been able to resist drinking a bottle of wine is a year and a half, eventually I drink all the cheap stuff and open what I have available because its easier then going to the store (see point #1).

  34. I wasn’t all that impressed with this place. But man, things are flying off the market. Malin’s team sold another place recently: 2253 Broderick. I can’t believe they got the price they did for that place. Mind blown.

  35. Interesting wine conversation, I am sorry I missed it the first time around.
    I am one of those people who can fortunately or perhaps unfortunately tell the difference between a $20 bottle of wine and a $200 bottle of wine. My brother holds a wine tasting at his house every year with all the relatives and has everyone rate the wines. Every year Two Buck Chuck is the crowd favorite. I have no idea why, but I think the oakiness is a big reason. One thing that I have noticed with Chateaux Charles is that there is a lot of bottle variation. When I was really trying to pinch pennies, I would buy a bottle, go taste it in the parking lot, then go in and buy a case if it was any good. Usually it was not.
    I wish I had a cellar as I am really starting to like older wines. I recently purchased a 85 bottle of Chateaux Margeaux for my birthday and it was unbelievably good. Does anyone know of a good wine blog? I am starting to think that investing in wine is a good idea right now, but that might just be my taste bud speaking.

  36. The sale of 245 Mallorca Way closed escrow today with a reported contract price of $3,425,000. Don’t forget those invitations to the housewarming (and to leave the cellar unlocked).

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