These days all the new wine gadgets I hear about seem to have something to do with using magnets or cosmic rays or something to make cheap wine taste better or to make young wine taste properly aged. It’s pretty rare to see a major innovation in the wine world that actually represents a serious breakthrough in anything.

Which is why when someone sent me the link to Spiral Cellars, I got so excited. They seem to be a great concept. Anywhere that you can dig a big hole under your house, you can have a wine cellar. They seem to have good capacity, built in temperature regulation, and I love the idea of having access to it right in the kitchen or dining room.

Of course there are some things that need to be verified, like, just how wide are those stairs anyway? The darn thing looks awfully small and I’m imagining that it could be tough to actually reach down and grab some of the lower wines unless there’s room to bend over. And then there’s the issue of price, which the silly folks at Spiral Cellars have neglected to include on their web site. Which leads anyone rational to believe that they’re pretty darn expensive.

And then there’s the fact that they seem to be a UK based company. But how cool would it be to simply be able to lift up a trap door in your kitchen and grab another bottle? I’ll tell you: really cool.

Thanks to Appliancist for the link, and to Jack for pointing me there.