What’s it like for someone who is fortunate enough to blend his love of wine with an occupation of building custom wine cellars?
Just ask Jason Scott who joined the Orange County Wine Society last summer.
The former medical sales representative and a DIY guy landed an opportunity to work in the wine industry when he was hired at Vintage Cellars, a company headquartered in San Diego, which builds luxury wine cellars in a variety of styles, spaces and applications.
Whether the design is traditional, contemporary or modern – or something more unique – the company, which just celebrated its 35th anniversary , works to bring a client’s vision to life.
“Basically we’re making a very large refrigerator and it has to work,” Scott said. “There are so many different options and it really comes down to aesthetics versus capacity.”
Scott, who grew up in Orange County, has been with the company for about five years and has seen a wide array of wine cellars across Southern California. The job is more of a hybrid of sales and design, while dealing with probably the most challenging part of the job – explaining the cost to customers.
“The biggest challenge is having them understand the cost,” he said. “It’s fitting the cellar to what they want and can afford. It’s that expectation and trying to match it to reality.”
Scott said the average cost of a cellar designed and built by his company is around $50,000, but added cellars can be built for less, depending on the space. And for those with no budget … the sky is the limit!
Scott recalls a cellar in Newport Coast that cost $500,000 and another in Rancho Santa Fe that had a 10-foot-high wine wall that was modern and had space for the owner’s magnum bottles. The company also works with wineries who need their own cellar space. Scott said Vintage Cellars is working with Paso-based Daou Family Estates, which has purchased land in southern Tuscany.
Frequently in the higher end homes, Scott says some of his customers don’t care as much about the wine but they know having a wine cellar will help boost a home’s eventual resell value. “It’s kind of expected for certain types of homes,” Scott said