Journal

Notes on wine, design & technology

Perspectives from the team building the connected cellar — on what makes a cellar intelligent, and the engineering behind a collection that looks after itself.

The cellar technology map — an interactive constellation of wine-cellar companies and where Uva fits

The modern wine cellar technology map

An interactive map of the companies shaping modern cellars — and where Uva fits across racking, climate, lighting, inventory, AI and design.

A row of wine bottles beside a leather-bound book and a brass magnifying glass

Getting Started

How to start a wine collection

A welcoming guide to starting a collection, finding your own taste, and learning wine as you go — no expertise required to begin.

What makes a wine cellar truly smart

An honest tour of apps, digital twins, tags and cabinets — and what genuine virtual-physical integration looks like.

Bottles on illuminated cradles

Seeing your collection without exposing it

Distributed LEDs, spectrum control and per-bottle UV budgets that let you see every bottle without aging it.

Responsive light rippling across a textured wall above a single bottle in a dark, minimal room

Light that answers back

Interactive, responsive lighting — from the galleries that pioneered it to a cellar designed to behave like a living work of art.

Exploded view of the Uva cradle

Engineered to disappear

Magnetic latching cradles, dense COB lighting and a purpose-built sensor bus — the behind-the-wall craft that makes it feel effortless.

Architectural drawing of a custom floor-to-ceiling wine cellar

How to design a custom modern wine cellar

Technology that doesn't date, retrofits done right, climate, light, capacity and cost — a guide to a cellar that's modern today and timeless for decades.

Private tasting room with seating

Designing a wine cellar for entertaining

Ambiance, the theatre of choosing a bottle, and effortless guidance for guests — a cellar built to become the centre of how you host.

Still from the film on how the Uva smart cellar works

How the Uva smart cellar works

A short film on the invisible hardware, bottles that light on demand, and the Smart Sommelier app.

How a family set out to make the hardware disappear, let the bottles glow, and bring more meaning to every collection.

An Ixsir Grande Réserve bottle and a glass of white on the estate terrace

Ixsir, and a lunch that went long

A visit to Ixsir in the hills above Batroun, Lebanon — the drive, the estate, a long lunch on the terrace, and the wines worth slowing down for.

A Château de Candale red and a Le goût de la vie white on a terrace table

A table in the vines

Dinner at L'Atelier de Candale, Saint-Émilion — a terrace over the vines, the estate's own bottles, and an evening that went long.