If you’re going to talk about luxury homes in the Los Angeles area, one thing you have to consider is that many homes of the rich and famous will probably have a wine cellar of some sort. For many, it’s nothing more than a status symbol. For others, it’s a necessity if they’re either going to be doing a lot of entertaining, or just love wines of all styles and vintages.

Many people don’t understand what the purpose of a wine cellar is, or why it’s such a big deal. People who are connoisseurs of wine have an understanding of what keeps a wine good over the course of time. For instance, these items seem to be important for keeping a wine at peak condition over time:

• Keeping wine in the dark most of the time
• Keeping a consistent temperature, especially in the Los Angeles area where the weather is a bit warmer than normal; wines like to be kept cooler, around 70 degrees Fahrenheit
• Little movement, as wines don’t like being jostled too often
• Good humidity to keep the corks from drying out so they don’t shrink, as their purpose is to allow wines to breathe some, but not get contaminated by outside air
• Keeping the air still, as this also can dry corks
• If you’re going to collect a lot of wines, having them all in one place for convenience and safety

Of course, after those factors, all bets are off as to how they’re created. Some builders only use wood; others only use stone or brick. Some avant garde builders of wine cellars will use metals that actually look like coolers. In an expensive home, homes will usually be built with a wine cellar, though one can be added later; it costs more to install a wine cellar after the fact.

Los Angeles is truly a unique place when it comes to wine cellars. Even the mayor’s mansion has a wine cellar; that’s unheard of in most places around the country. In today’s world, where most celebrities will buy homes that already have this feature rather than build a home, the house of former television producer Aaron Spelling stands out not only because of its massive size, but because it also has a wine tasting room.

Another wonderful house that was formerly owned by both Kirstie Alley and Katey Segal, once again on the market for around $ 9.3 million dollars, has a large wine cellar also, with a lighted arch that can highlight the favorite wine of the owner at the time.

And the home of actors Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, which they paid $ 16 million for, came with a brick wine cellar, which they had to wait to use since, when they purchased it, Jennifer was pregnant.

Wine cellars in the homes of the rich and famous don’t conform to the same look or style either. Some have wines stacked on top of each other. Some have them facing each other, or side by side. Some have they spiraling either up or down, covering the equivalent of two stories. Some figure out ways to compact the space, while others want the space to be as large as their living rooms might be. And, because they have the money to pay for it, many will order customize wine cellars from Italy and France and have them installed in space set aside just for them.

No matter what, if you’re looking for a home in Los Angeles and have the money to spend, you’ll easily be able to find a home with a stylish wine cellar.

As much pride as our world-famous wineries claim to have in their century-old establishments, the majority of the burden of wine making actually falls to a single-celled organism: yeast. In fact, much of the art of wine making is actually the art of feeding and nurturing the yeast. A famous quote from Dr. Roger Boulton from the University of California illustrates: “Ninety percent of wine making has nothing to do with the winemaker. All a winemaker is doing is preventing spoilage, introducing some unique style to the wine and bottling it.”

So what is yeast, and what is it doing? Yeast is a single-celled organism, a strain of fungus. It moves freely in the environment and when it finds nutrition it replicates quickly to form a colony. The earliest known usage of yeast was in ancient Egypt, where it was often used for bread making. In fact, anyone who has ever had to culture yeast for bread making will understand much of what it takes to be a winemaker.

There are many different kinds of yeast, and the ones generally helpful for wine making are of the genus Saccharomyces (Sakchar meaning sugar and Myces meaning fungus), of which there are over a dozen to pick from, each which adds different characteristics to wine. The yeasts of this genus consume the natural sugar found in fruit juice and transform it into almost equal parts of carbon dioxide and alcohol.And there’s the rub: without yeast, it’s just grape juice.

So then, if wine making is an art, then its primary tool is the ability to control yeast. Fresh pressed grape juice will typically already have dozens of different kinds of yeasts, as well as a number of other microbial invaders. If you left the juice as is, it would develop into wine on its own, though it would likely be over-alcoholic and undrinkable. To create a truly great wine, the winemaker must have a specific yeast in mind, introduce it at the right time, feed it and nurture it, and allowing it to die and be cleaned whilst preserving the fruits of its labor. This involves a rigorous control over temperature, humidity, and quality of fruit.

Over the many centuries since wine makers have bottled their products, they have been returning the old skins and seeds of crushed grapes (the pomace) to the vineyards to be used in fertilization. The grape skins are breeding grounds for yeast, and by returning yeast-rich pomace to the vines, vineyards have managed to subtly alter the natural yeasts that occur in their fields. Over time, the selected strain of yeast begins to dominate so rigidly that a winemaker can simply encourage spontaneous fermentation. Those making homemade wines don’t have this luxury, and even established vineyards may be centuries away from such a yeast domination.

So despite the vigilant claims of expert wine makers across the world, it’s obvious that the real master winemaker is yeast.

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