What does the word vintage mean to you? Old? Well in terms of wine, it is a reflection of the grape that has been grown and harvested in a single specified year. It denotes an essence of quality. With age comes wisdom, one becomes more refined and with wine, rare. So what happens when you get little of both? Through bread and aged? A jersey cellar has found out. In a vintage custom wine cellar nearly as old as the country it’s self a wine collection has been uncovered. The collection is said to be owned by the first governor which had been stowed away in the Liberty Hall Museum.

The vintage custom wine cellar is said to be dating back to as early as 1776 and belonging to William Livingston.

The hoard was unearthed during a six-month renovation of the space. Hidden in plain sight, the make shift wine cellar has played home to hundreds of bottles for the past 200 years. Bottles have been uncovered in antique cages that represent colonial times. Wines such as Madeira, which is said to be one of the most distinguished wines in the British colony for the time will now be put on display in the Museum.

So does older necessarily mean better? Well, the wine cannot be drunk but…

Estimates of the wine have since been flooding in with bottles ranging between £10,000 - £25,000. Elated at the find, the museum director has remarked that ‘We could never have imagined finding what we did’, and has now vowed to turn the vintage custom wine cellar into somewhat of a feature of the museum. Once the home of the Governor, the house style museum has kept its colonial charm and now, thanks to this find has dramatically increased its net worth. So, I guess with age, or vintage comes serious financial benefit.