Unique cellar wows judges

Wine lovers Sophie and Matt Thomson had been storing wine in the dark, windowless room under their stairs for years before they decided to make a feature out of it.

The ‘‘redundant space’’ had once been the waiting room, when the 1960s home was owned by eye specialist Dr Wilson.

Early last year their masterpiece – a temperature-controlled wine cellar with capacity for 2000 bottles – was completed as part of renovations by Neil Hunt, of Hunt Construction.

‘‘We deeply love wine and it is our life, so it makes sense for us to have something that is a feature of our home,’’ Sophie Thomson said.

The pair own high-end wine brand Blank Canvas Wines, and work as wine consultants in New Zealand and Europe.

Their collection of 1500 bottles is stacked on about a tonne of stainless steel racking, courtesy of George Manson of G M Engineering.

Sophie said the pair gravitated towards aromatic reds and loved a good pinot. Special mention went to their bottle of 1997 Giuseppe Quintarelli Amarone della Valpolicella, a very rare Italian wine.

The Thomsons have been collecting wines together since Sophie moved to Marlborough nine years ago, but some of the first bottles were ones Matt has been saving since he was a teenager.

‘‘Probably unusual for a 16-year-old but he decided at that stage that he was pretty fascinated by wine,’’ Sophie said.

The 6.44-square-metre space was the ‘‘point of difference’’ that won the renovations several prizes at the Registered Master Builders House of the Year Awards. The project came away with the regional supreme winner for renovation and the gold standard regional category winner for renovations up to $500,000.

Sophie said builder Neil Hunt was prompted to enter the awards for the first time due to the unique project.

‘‘It was a bit of a point of difference with the cellar.’’

As a top 100 Gold Reserve finalist, it will be judged by a national panel at an awards dinner in Auckland in November.