As the founder of Jean Machine, among Toronto’s first stores to sell premium denim, Roy Perlman knows that when bottoms are up it’s a good year for both his business and his wine collection of 600 bottles imported from South Africa, the country he left to immigrate to Canada 39 years ago. The garrulous fashion entrepreneur stores the vintages in a wine cellar fashioned out of a former storage closet in his home’s basement. His wife, Anne, a chef with whom he has four grown children, spearheaded the conversion, hiring Steve Papadimitriou, of Papro Wine Cellars & Consulting, to do the job. The renovation last year took only six weeks to complete – a relatively quick turnaround considering that Perlman had been incubating the idea of a home cellar for several years and could never quite find the time to get it organized. Perlman now doesn’t know why he waited so long. “This is where I come to relax,” he says, his South African accent lilting through his words. “It’s a room built for pleasure.”
The shelving “That’s maple wood, and it’s got a good smell to it, a nice aroma. It makes you feel like you’re on a farm when you step into it. Just close your eyes and inhale. I wanted a little creativity and so the shelving was designed so you can move around and not feel like you’re in a liquor store.”
The bottles “I grew up in Wellington, the heart of South Africa’s wine district, which is where I learned to sip wine – I say sip and not drink because there is a difference. This is not about consuming a whole bottle and getting drunk. This is about savouring the richness of the flavours and sharing a passion among friends. I buy wine when I go back to South Africa, but I also store here my spirits and liqueurs. I store the wine on their side and use a little straw to test them on a regular basis. I have a bottle dating back to 1976 and I would hate to think it would be laid out there, spoiling.”
The flooring “It looks like wood but it’s tile. Anne went about with Steve and they found it together. It’s easy to keep clean. In the event that wine might spill, wood would absorb it. But not here. The floor is not porous. It won’t drink up a good wine.”
The cask “It’s a little vat used for sherry with a tap at the end. It’s a feature and also nice to look at. It’s modelled after the big vats made of oak and used to store wine in South Africa. The older ones are cut down to make these little vats. I pour the contents into decanters and serve them to my friends.”
The glassware “We’ve got a glass for every type of wine: white, red, Champagne. It’s really not that sophisticated back in South Africa where we would just have the one glass. But glassware like this by Riedel has really evolved and I am telling you that having the right glassware really makes a difference to the enjoyment of the wine. For example, I can pour a cabernet into the white wine glass and taste the tannins. But when I pour it into its proper stemware then you can taste the wine how it is meant to be experienced. It’s phenomenal.”
The lighting “I really enjoyed choosing the lighting because it also adds to the sense that this is a room you enjoy being in. There’s lighting in the horizontal shelving and in the ceilings, LEDs that are not bright but give the room atmosphere. They are activated by three switches, all located on the outside wall. The room has a maple frame door with a glass insert and I can modulate the lighting to illuminate the room from the inside, making it glow. It’s lovely to look at.”
The walls “All the finishes were done by the best trades working in plaster that they then painted to give the room the look of a cave. This is Venetian plaster, and few trades nowadays do it.”