Our History

The Thermograph Founded in January 1986 by Sebastian Riley-Smith under the railway arches at Chelsea Bridge, the first clients were a mix of top wine houses, restaurants and hotels. Smith & Taylor Cellarage & Carriage offered a Central London wine storage and delivery service from the heart of London. The natural cool temperature was recorded on the company thermograph. The first clients were Champagne Lanson, Laurent Perrier & Palmer, Friarwood Wine Shippers, The Churchill Hotel and Le Gavroche.

Cellar Boxes As a result of growing demand for wine services, Smith & Taylor moved to their current home, Chelsea Bridge Cellars, the first over ground containerised temperature-controlled wine store in the UK. With turbine coolers and humidity introduction, the cellars were soon to attract a growing list of the finest wine storage and delivery clients in the UK. These included Mentzendorff, Seagrams, Bibendum Wine, Champagnes Louis Roederer, Perrier Jouët and Pol Roger, and The Carlton Tower & Dorchester Hotels.
Smith & Taylor became the preferred wine depository for old vintage Ports acquired on the UK market by Taylor’s & Sandeman respectively, before being export packed and shipped by Smith & Taylor to Oporto. The Institute of Masters of Wine placed their library tasting stocks into our care.

Cellar Design Smith & Taylor designed and made their first residential wine cellar in Hamilton Terrace for an eminent QC Barrister. From this date Smith & Taylor’s domestic wine cellars were increasingly to reflect their client’s love of wine with design originality and precision. Soon after this, the company designed and made the cellars for the original London home of The Princess of Wales’s family, Spencer House.

Inventory Management A succession of high profile UK wine company failures, led to private client and corporate wine reserves being lost to receivership. Smith & Taylor as independent cellarers, in response developed a comprehensive private client wine storage, inventory management and cellar removal service. This attracted to store a host of corporate boardrooms such as Ellis Son & Vidler, Hambros Bank and various private cellars. Coopers & Lybrand engaged Smith & Taylor to move over 2000 cases of the entire private reserves of Ellis Son & Vidler to Chelsea Bridge Cellars. Private wine storage as an independent entity had become established.

Bottle Pick & Pack Smith & Taylor started Bottle Pick & Pack services for Brown Brothers of Australia and Montana of New Zealand, and Maisons Marques et Domaines, from Chelsea Bridge Cellars. Soon followed the Roux Brothers launch of their own label champagne with The Observer Newspaper. With supermarket growth, the Asda wine range was Bottle Picked & Packed by Smith & Taylor to the press from Chelsea Bridge. Government bodies, Wines from Spain, The Sherry Institute, Wines of Germany, Wines of Argentina, Wines of Uraguay, Languedoc-Roussillon, instructed hundreds of producers across the globe to send sample stocks direct to Smith & Taylor’s cellars, for press promotion. The celebrated David Montgomery was appointed photographer for Smith & Taylor’s brochure.

Cellar Removals With the trust between Merchants as custodians of wine damaged by the early nineties industry collapses, Smith & Taylor was increasingly recognised as the specialist independent packer and mover of fine wine. Smith & Taylor’s high security van and fidelity bonded drivers moved The Courage Directors, ICI and Prudential wine cellars acknowledging the company skill in moving and bringing into store the finest wine collections in Europe. That same year the largest private collection of wine, all cellared at Chelsea Bridge Cellars, was sold at Sotheby’s in a celebrated sale.

Restuarants & Wine Top London Restaurants were expanding their wine lists. The sommeliers became prominent figures and Smith & Taylor became the London bolt hole for Restaurant wine reserves. After designing and making The Square Restaurant Cellars in Mayfair, Mossimans, The Square, Bibendum, Mijanou, Chez Bruce, Ledbury, The Glasshouse, La Trompette all built up substantial wine holdings at Chelsea Bridge to enhance their extensive fine wine lists.

The Wine Columnist Smith & Taylor’s founder Sebastian Riley-Smith became the wine journalist for Bloomberg Money, resulting in a range of articles appropriately entitled Champagne for the millennium, Sample your portfolio, Chill out on Chile, Liquid Assets, bringing the growing investment awareness in wine to an eager and interested readership. Laurent Cattaneo joined the company as Cellar Manager.

Source Direct For the new millennium, the company rebranded to Smith & Taylor ‘Private Cellars’ and the business increased their emphasis on private client services. Source Direct was launched enabling collectors in store to sell wine to each other, sharing the price advantages of a private sale. The first Bordeaux producer, Château Phélan Ségur, came into store direct.

Fine Wine Dining Room Smith & Taylor designed made and installed their first fine wine dining room at Morton’s Club, Berkeley Square, Mayfair. The high-profile project, placed Smith & Taylor at the forefront of international wine room development. Smith & Taylor also completed the first baronial cellar in Scotland.

Bonded Service Smith & Taylor in a magnificent Oldham Cotton Mill launched their bonded service. The building’s basement cellar was supported by a multiplicity of Luxor columns. Smith & Taylor’s profound attention to detail and stock control for private clients was now a bonded service for select collections.

The Perfect Temperature Smith & Taylor designed and made their first two fully bespoke kitchen wine cabinets in Chelsea and Holland Park. Though bringing new challenges to domestic wine storage the cabinets maximised storage space and maintained perfect temperature and humidity in a kitchen environment.

Glass Revolution Smith & Taylor designed and installed their first low iron glass wall of wine through which a wine room itself could be viewed. Metal was also introduced to the design as an integral material to both store and display wine. Sebastian Riley-Smith became the wine writer for Arbuthnot Latham's Private Life magazine, and tutorial wine tastings were given at The Jockey Club Rooms Newmarket, Highclere Castle Newbury and Oundle School, Northamptonshire.

World of Fine Wine Smith & Taylor became film makers interviewing great wine producers. The World of Fine Wine magazine acknowledged our progress in this field in a major article, and films were made and edited with the celebrated film maker Brian Hemmingway, of Patrice Noyelle (Pol Roger), Anthony Barton (Château Léoville Barton), Comte Audoin de Dampierre (Dampierre Champagne), Alistair Robertson (Taylor’s Port), Marchese Nicolo Incisa della Rochetta (Sassicaia), Marchese Ferdinando Frescobaldi (Masseto), Rita Tua (Tua Rita).

Global & Digital The first Wine room was fitted offshore in Frankfurt and breathtaking wine rooms in the course of the following years were fitted in Wentworth, Chelsea, Wimbledon, Belgravia, Clapham, Putney, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. One such wine dining room in Belgravia was framed with a display for thirteen different bottle sizes, from a bottle to a Melchizedek (40 Bottle Bottle). Smith & Taylor began to provide wine inventory software for the home.

Pop Up Wine This year saw an advance in Smith & Taylor's designs. Smith & Taylor installed the wine room for Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons Restaurant at Great Milton, the creation in Mayfair of a wine cabinet displaying 68 different vintages of Château Mouton Rothschild, and our first pop up wine room, showcased at the celebration of The Halkin Hotel's 20th anniversary.

A New Angle Smith & Taylor produced a corridor of angled wine bottles with a shotgun cabinet and also designed a mahogany wine cabinet for The All England Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon. Smith & Taylor first sourced the wines for the annual charity dinner and auction for The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, at the prestigious Le Gavroche and has done so every year since.

Six Canons of Wine Storage A wine room was made for a private collection of Château Haut-Brion in Holland Park, and for a wine cellar featuring an underground stream in Oxfordshire. Fishmongers' Hall commissioned Smith & Taylor to redesign their very substantial basement cellars. Smith & Taylor collaborated with the photographer Jonathan Beer to produce a set of six photos to reflect through imagery, the six canons of wine storage – Temperature, Humidity, Provenance, Stability, Darkness and Time. Smith & Taylor's new strap line was introduced as ‘Chelsea Bridge Cellars.’

The Dublin Jobs Two wine rooms were constructed in Dublin, Ireland, The Garrick Club in Covent Garden and in the Casa di Stefania Restaurant, Dover Street, Mayfair. The unique feature of the Chef's Table surrounded by bespoke ironwork made the Casa di Stefania wine room one of the most exclusive private dining experiences in the Mayfair.

The Great Wine Dinner Champagne producers Le Brun de Neuville & Comtes de Dampierre started bringing their stocks in direct from France to access the UK market through Smith & Taylor. The first signs of climate change, flooding of underground cellars, saw Smith & Taylor offering a full loss adjustment service for insurance companies. Smith & Taylor sourced the wines for the dinner and the auction lots for The Marie Curie Great Wine Dinner at Vintners Hall, City of London.

Going Electric Smith & Taylor acquires its first fully electric van for cellar removals and deliveries within Central London and Home Counties.