Professional wine storage in New York

[chrisnorth]

I keep my wine at Chelsea Wine & Storage (formerly Chelsea Wine Vault), located underneath the Chelsea Market. (Note: you can no longer enter through the wine store in the Market; you need to enter from the 16th St. door near the freight dock.)

In general I have had a good experience and would recommend it to Manhattan-dwellers who are looking for reliable professional storage in a convenient location.

Two things I have particularly liked about Chelsea are the very friendly and accomodating service, and the excellent online inventory system (which was several years in coming but worth the wait).

The cellar is very "high-touch": they have been extremely accomodating to requests for quick turnaround/delivery, finding ways to move wine from one place to another (even overseas). They maintain inventory at the bottle level (useful for those who like my buy a lot of mixed cases) and will pick single bottles from cases. The delivery charges within Manhattan are reasonable (around $12).

The catch is that it is fairly expensive -- I think it is now above $2/case/month, don't have my statements in front of me. And handling fees can add up -- $3/case in or out, which means that if you ask them to pick 12 individual bottles from separate cases you are looking at a $36 fee.

At this point since I have moved to London and intend to keep most of my wine in NY (since I will return to NY at some point, and with much of the wine intended for long-term aging I would rather not move it twice) I do not need to pay a premium for geographical convenience or high service levels and am investigating less-expensive options.

Any suggestions for NY-metropolitan-area wine storage much appreciated.

Chris