The Largest Wine Cellar in the World

Mike Gerrard discovers the biggest wine cellar in the world, which is not in Paris but at a steakhouse in Tampa, Florida.

‘I wouldn’t recommend the chorizo-stuffed scallops,’ our waitress Lisa Shell tells us with disarming honesty. I ask her if the chef knows she says that. ‘Oh yes, I’ve told him. I think the taste of the chorizo overpowers the scallop but he loves the dish. It’s up to you, but…’

Lisa is also the first waitress I’ve ever encountered who discourages us from running up the bill. ‘The side portions are large,’ she explains, ‘and there are a few little extra nibbles from the chef, so if you want to leave room for dessert – and believe me, you do – then I’d recommend ordering a smaller portion of a better-quality steak rather than go for a large one.’

We’re in Bern’s Steak House in Tampa, Florida, and it’s like no other restaurant we’ve ever experienced. Several pages of the menu are given over to describing the different cuts of meat, their various flavors and textures, and how they’re best prepared and cooked. The meats have all been aged for 5-8 weeks, the steaks are cut when you order them and then cooked over the natural wood charcoal grill.

But the most astonishing thing about Bern’s is not that it serves the finest steaks in the United States – Florida has always been prime cattle country – but that it has the largest wine cellar in the world. Bern’s can boast half a million bottles, which is about 50,000 more than its nearest rival, the Tour d’Argent in Paris. As the Tour d’Argent opened for business in 1582 in the capital of the greatest wine-making nation on earth, and Bern’s dates back all the way to 1956 in a state not exactly known for its vintage wines, you have to raise a glass to its founder, Bern Laxton.

Bern was a missionary for wine. When he began collecting in the 1960s he toured France buying up stocks of wine the average American wine drinker had never heard of, and today about 65% of the list is still French. Bern also believed that good wine should be affordable, so the mark-ups are low. There is no overpriced ‘house wine’, the cheapest bottles on the list are easily affordable, and there are 200 wines by the glass , starting at just a few dollars.

Before anyone sneers and say that America is about quantity not quality, bear in mind that there are also 38 vintages of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild beginning with 1901, while the Chateau Latour goes back to 1920 and the Chateau Lafite Rothschild to 1881. The oldest wine in the cellar is an 1802 Madeira, and there are 300 Madeiras, ports and sherries served by the glass.

‘People come from all over the world to sample some of the wines,’ Lisa tells us, and a few minutes later our ears prick up when I hear the conversation at the next table, where one of Bern’s three sommeliers is taking the wine order for two French men.

‘Are you sure you want to drink a vintage so young?’ he asks them. ‘We do have them going back to the 1980s, if you wanted to try one more mature… I served a 1920 Chateau Margaux last night. That’s a great vintage. People think of 1928 and 1929 as great vintages but that 1920 was also excellent.’

Our own foray into Bern’s list is more modest, as Lisa suggests three glasses we might sample to go with the different courses. None of them costs more than $9 but they’re all wonderful wines and perfect matches for the scallops (no chorizo) and the best steaks we’ve ever had in our lives. The steaks are so tender you could almost pour them into a glass and drink them.

Bern’s serves 600 covers a night, 900 on the weekends, and about half the diners choose to do the free guided tour of the kitchen and wine cellar after the main course, as they then make their way to the Harry Waugh Dessert Room upstairs.

The cellar is surprisingly small and nondescript, as ‘only’ 90,000 bottles are kept on the premises, the rest in three nearby warehouses, and rows of wine bottles look like rows of wine bottles, no matter where you are in the world. It’s just that Bern’s has got more of them than anyone else. The rare vintages are kept behind lock and key, with security on the premises 24 hours a day.

‘How can you serve so many wines by the glass, what equipment do you use to keep them fresh,’ we ask our guide, Patrick, who also happens to be Lisa’s husband. There’s romance too at Bern’s, as this is where they met. ‘We don’t use any special equipment,’ Patrick says. ‘It’s the sheer volume of turnover. The bottles aren’t open long enough for the wine to deteriorate.’

Just like home, then. And the place is so relaxed, that’s exactly what it feels like. Give or take half a million bottles of wine.