We head down to The Stafford Hotel, and venture down into the wine cellar where Winston Churchill is thought to have drunk magnum’s of champagne.
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00:00 Well, when you step in the cellar, literally like you're stepping in another time.
00:04 Welcome to the Stafford cellar.
00:07 We are in one of the oldest cellars in London.
00:09 Roughly we talk about 380 years back in time.
00:13 And it was the private cellar of Lady Lyttelton, which at the time was, they were saying that
00:19 it was the babysitter of Queen Victoria.
00:22 You touched on the history as well during the war.
00:25 Could you just tell us a little bit about that?
00:27 Well, during the Second World War, Stafford was hosting American and Canadian officers
00:31 mainly.
00:33 So when it wasn't that safe up in the hotel, of course, they were coming down to seek shelter.
00:40 And hopefully maybe with a bottle opener, it would have been a little bit more fun,
00:44 I think.
00:45 Well, for sure, of course, we knew, we were mostly sure that Winston Churchill passed
00:51 by the Stafford.
00:53 He most likely was a guest in the bar and maybe had any meeting down here.
01:00 And we know for a fact that champagne was one of his favorite drinks.
01:06 And he was saying that the perfect size to drink by himself, it was a Magnum.
01:13 And talk to me about some of the wines you've got in here.
01:15 All right.
01:16 So we have a beautiful selection of wine.
01:17 We're talking about something roughly to 600 beans, 600 different wines, roughly, almost
01:24 there.
01:25 And we have a wide selection, of course.
01:29 We are quite strong on French wine with a main focus on Bordeaux and Burgundy.
01:35 And do you have a kind of favorite wine that's kept in here?
01:39 Favorite wine?
01:40 I had.
01:41 Unfortunately, we sold it.
01:43 It was my assistant, Cesare, that sold it quite recently.
01:46 It was the Chateau Mouton from 1982, which we had a beautiful pleasure to last year to
01:54 do the harvest in there.
01:56 And the Roger family actually served it to us on the lunch after the harvest.
02:01 And that was my favorite wine whatsoever.
02:03 Unfortunately, it's gone.
02:05 All right.
02:06 So in the wine cellar is great.
02:08 We have a, it's quite wine focused.
02:10 We are hosting a lot of wine tasting, not just private, but also open to whoever want
02:16 to join.
02:17 We most likely will do it on the last Friday of the month.
02:21 This wine cellar feels very much rooted in London's history.
02:26 Do you feel like that when you're here?
02:28 Do you feel like you're almost a part of London history when you're working here?
02:32 Well, when you step in the cellar, literally like you're stepping in another time, that's
02:37 how it feels like because literally we preserve as much as we could, like the integrity of
02:43 it and the particularity without touching that much or refurbishing it that much.
02:51 And literally when you step inside the cellar, it's like to step back 300 years ago.
02:57 And it's just beautiful.