Winston Churchill is rumoured to have spent many nights here during the war.
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00:00The Stafford London's historic wine cellars are among the oldest in London
00:05and house over 8,000 bottles of fine wines and champagnes. It's also a place
00:11where Prime Minister Winston Churchill supposedly spent many evenings during
00:17the war. Today I'm heading there to speak to a wine connoisseur and find out more
00:22about this historic part of London. We are in one of the oldest cellar in
00:27London. Roughly we talk about 380 years back in time and was the private cellar
00:34of Lady Lyttelton which at the time was they were saying that it was the
00:39babysitter of Queen Victoria. Well during the Second World War Stafford was
00:43hosting American and Canadian officers mainly so when it wasn't that safe up
00:50in the hotel of course they were coming down to seek shelter and hopefully maybe
00:55with a bottle opener would it be a little bit more fun I think. Well for
00:59sure of course we knew, we mostly sure that Winston Churchill passed by
01:05by the Stafford. He most likely was our guest in the in the bar and maybe had
01:12any meeting down here and we know for a fact that champagne was one of his
01:18favorite drink and he was saying that the perfect size to drink by himself it
01:24was a Magnum. Talk to me about some of the wines you've got in here. Alright so we
01:30have a beautiful selection of wine. We're talking about something roughly to 600
01:34bins, 600 different wines roughly almost there and we have a wide
01:41selection of course. We are quite strong on French wine with a main focus on
01:46Bordeaux and Burgundy. And do you have like a kind of favorite wine that's
01:51kept in here? Favorite wine I had, unfortunately we sold it. It was my
01:57assistant Cesare that sold it quite recently. It was the Mouton, Chateau Mouton
02:03from 1982 which we had a beautiful pleasure to last year to do the harvest
02:09in there and the Roger family actually served it to us on the lunch after the
02:14harvest and that was my favorite wine whatsoever unfortunately it's gone. This
02:19wine cellar feels very much rooted in London's history. Do you feel like that
02:25when you're here? Do you feel like you're almost a part of London history when
02:29you're working here? Well when you step in the cellar literally like you're
02:32stepping in another time that that's how it feels like because literally we
02:37preserve as much as we could like the integrity of it and the
02:43particularity without touching that much or refurbish it that much and
02:48literally when you step inside the cellar it's like to step back 300 years
02:54ago and it's just beautiful.