Cigar Room Buffers Cellar’s Chill
W
hen Ed Shada of Council Bluffs built his dream wine cellar, he was certain of one thing: A wine room is a place to store wine, not to consume it.
“A wine cellar at 57 degrees is too cold to sit in. When you’re shivering, wine doesn’t taste good,” he says, laughing. So as part of a whole-house expansion that nearly doubled its original living space, Shada told his architect and contractor that he wanted a cigar room adjacent to the wine room in the lower level of his home. The glass-enclosed cigar room now holds a farmhouse-style table, chairs and vineyard-themed artwork. A sophisticated air-handling system neutralizes the smoke, and guests can slip into the glassfronted wine cellar for another bottle of Cabernet without missing one play on the big-screen TV. Shada has been a collector and student of wine since 1986. A resident of Chicago then, he recalls a lesson learned during a visit to a neighborhood wine store. An employee stocking shelves offered to help,
Shada says, but he didn’t have the “wine snob” look so Shada declined. But the employee persisted, and Shada discovered that he had a wealth of knowledge. “He taught me a lot” during successive visits to the store, Shada says, including that you can’t judge a person’s expertise by whether he looks the part. Later, a move to San Francisco put Shada within an hour of Napa Valley’s famed wineries. “I spent a number of years going to the wineries and drinking wine there. I met the owners and vendors; it was a great opportunity.” Shada and his wife, Bailie, are world travelers, and their trips frequently are occasions to discover new vintages. For example, they just returned from Italy and a memorable encounter with a Reserve Chianti. The Shada wine cellar holds 450 bottles and can accommodate another 450. Shada says 99 percent of the collection consists of reds. He prefers thick, full-bodied reds rather than whites, which he believes tend to be too sweet. Tastes evolve though, and that could change, he adds. - Pat Waters
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The Shadas host an annual holiday party for 70 to 80 friends. Ed's wine recommendations for such gatherings: • A white. “Lots of people like Chardonnay. Women especially tend to like that.” • A merlot. “It’s an inbetween wine that’s not as heavy as a Cab (Cabernet). It offers a nice, fruity balance between a Pinot and a Cab.” • A Cabernet. “You’ll have guys who want a Cab.” • A Sauterne. “A nice dessert wine to go with sweets.” • When the occasion calls for champagne, Shada likes Perrier-Jouet from France, or, as a more economical choice, a bottle from J Vineyards and Winery in California.
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While some collectors have thousands of bottles, Shada is happy with his cellar, which is about 7 feet by 21 feet. “I look at (mammoth collections) and say, ‘How do you drink all that wine?’ For our purposes, 450 bottles is good.”
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