4221 Connecticut Avenue once housed a Rolls Royce dealership. Now, it’s a place to park your wine collection.
When Domaine Wine Storage informed ANC 3F of its plans to set up shop underneath 4221 Connecticut Avenue in 2012, it was being described as a wholesale storage depot. It didn’t sound all that interesting.
We were so, so wrong. But DCist got it right. Domaine, as this article explains, does do wholesale wine storage. The rest of its business is more like self storage for clients’ personal wine collections.
“And there’s no need to pass any wine-knowledge quiz to get in either,” DCist’s Travis Mitchell writes. “You don’t have to know your Burgundy from your Bordeaux or your Malbec from your Merlot to get in. They’ll store just about anything you want to keep cool and safe.”
Domaine’s secure entrance is in the back alley behind 4221 Connecticut Avenue.
Something to keep in mind if you’ve overindulged at Calvert Woodley Wine & Spirits, Van Ness Wines and Liquors, Soapstone Market and Giant, and you’re running out of space in your home to store it all. Beer, mixers, liquor and the occasional Yellowtail have been stored there.
Even if you’re not an oenophile, the history of the site is interesting. Until it closed in 1980, the underground warehouse was part of Flood Pontiac, a Rolls Royce and Pontiac dealer founded in 1933. Domaine co-founder Marc Lazar describes spending months cleaning up “a ton of grease, scrap metal, and hydraulic tanks” left untouched for more than 30 years.
Read the article, see interior photos and find out why the general manager has decided it’s the best place to ride out a zombie apocalypse at DCist.com.