No Sommelier Required

AMERICANS bought 745 million gallons of wine last year — 4 percent more than in 2006 and 44 percent more than in 1997, according to the Wine Institute, a California-based trade association.

A corollary: Because more homeowners are socking away bottles for special occasions, the wine storage industry has grown, too. In 1997 it generated about $15 million in sales; last year that number was $800 million, according to the Wine Appreciation Guild, another advocacy group.

Apartment dwellers are stoking the trend, according to brokers, developers and wine experts. In rooms that would otherwise be used for exercise, for example, residents are installing climate-controlled wine lockers. Kitchen alcoves that might accommodate trash compactors are instead being fitted with special wine refrigerators, which have become part of standard appliance packages.

And developers are replacing basement storage areas with the kinds of wine cellars previously seen only in restaurants.

At Fifteen Madison Square North, a condominium conversion on East 26th Street, each of 73 one- to four-bedroom units comes with a 64-bottle Sub-Zero wine refrigerator. Priced from $1.5 million to $6 million, the apartments are 83 percent sold since August 2006, said Andrew Manton, a director with Walter & Samuels, the project’s Manhattan-based developer.

But in case the fridge doesn’t provide enough room for the dedicated oenophile, Mr. Manton is also creating a 1,000-square-foot wine cellar in the 20-story beige-brick building.

Designed by Cellarworks, a local company, the $500,000 U-shaped space will provide a mahogany cabinet free of charge to nearly every resident, though larger apartments will get larger cabinets, Mr. Manton said.

“It’s a very special amenity that’s suited to the type of person looking for top finishes,” he added.

By contrast, residents of the Lucida, a condo rising at 151 East 85th Street, will have to pay for a berth in the wine cellar. For $7,500, they will get a chest-height glass-fronted fridge, made by Summit Appliances, that holds 120 bottles.

Most buyers in the building, whose 110 two- to four-bedroom apartments have almost all sold, have bought fridges, said Anthony Abbruzzese, a manager for the Extell Development Company, the developer.

“It’s nice if you can have someone over and say, ‘Come down and see my special collection,’ ” Mr. Abbruzzese said.

Residents of the Setai, a condo conversion at 40 Broad Street in the financial district, won’t be able to extend a similar invitation. If they decide to keep their collections in a closed-off 2,400-bottle-capacity wine cellar, a sommelier will have to fetch their reds and whites.

But on the 33-story building’s second floor, a private club and a public restaurant will be separated by a pair of 30-foot-long floor-to-ceiling glass wine cases, illuminated with colored lights.

The 1,500 bottles currently in the cases are merely props, but real Burgundies and Bordeaux will replace them by November, with the debut of the restaurant, SHO Shaun Hergatt, said Jane Klaris, the sales director.

The luminous display has provided a handy sales tool for Ms. Klaris, whose office until very recently sat next to it.

“It’s definitely made a difference in first impressions, absolutely, ” she said, adding that the Setai’s 167 units — studios to three-bedrooms, from $815,000 to $7.87 million — are 70 percent sold since March 2006.

“Wine,” she said, “connotes a certain elegance.”