The vault that time forgot

Deep below Fortnum & Mason in London lies a dazzling, forgotten hoard: a cellar full of priceless wine, laid down for customers who have long since vanished. Rose George investigates.

James Taylor reaches up to the top shelf. Dressed in his usual grey swallow-tailed coat and waistcoat, he retrieves a large wooden crate from its place next to an ornamental Champagne bottle, an advertising gimmick deposited long ago in these underground reserves, hidden beneath the busy London grocery hall of Fortnum & Mason. Taylor – the store's chief wine buyer – opens the crate with care, because he knows what's inside: six bottles of Château Latour 1949, still in the straw bindings they were put in for safety, still with their purple tissue wrapping intact, complete with Fortnum & Mason stamp, more than 50 years later. A label on the side proclaims the owner as a Christopher Plummer ("Not the actor," says Taylor. "We've tried him"), or a Miss Elaine Taylor. This case is worth £20,000, and may be the most glamorous lost property in London.

For about two centuries, the venerable store has offered a generous service to its customers: space for laying down bottles – leaving them in the cool, non-centrally-heated downstairs vault – was available for free, for as long as the customer required. Now, however, there is a problem. One day recently, I was having lunch with the writer Simon Winchester, when he remembered that he had done precisely this, back in 1966, putting six bottles of port in indefinite storage for his three sons. He wondered if they were still there. We went to see.

Approach the glass counter in the ground-floor wine section, speak nicely to the staff, and shortly you will be shown down the stairs into the crypt, a tea-room that puts Fortnums' more famous ones – 100 metres or so away – to interior-decorating shame. Along one wall are dozens of empty bottles ancient and modern, whose contents have been drunk by the staff. On the floor, underneath a wall-mounted stone slab decorated with real-looking Tudor roses, is a range of magnums. There are four manorial chairs round a solid wooden table, although it's too dark there for wine-tasting (natural light is best to judge the colour, unless there's a sheet of white paper against which to hold the wine while viewing it). There's an original Tudor beam with carved maidens at each end, and a stained glass window, dated 1203, kept in darkness because the electric- light fixture behind it buzzes annoyingly.

There's also a doorway leading to the Fortnum & Mason wine cellars; a little-known area that nonetheless helps bring profits of £4m a year. It was through this doorway that James Taylor had disappeared a few minutes earlier, returning with a large red book. "We couldn't find you, Mr Winchester," he said; and looked very pleased. The 200-year-old reserve service is closing, owing to lack of space, and Mr Winchester's port – until he turned up, fortuitously – was among the boxes that will soon be without a home.

There are about 99 others, the property of people who have moved or died; of christened people who have forgotten, or who never knew, that their christening present lay in a Piccadilly cellar; of wives and mistresses who have forgotten the person who gave them their wines, and thus forgotten the wines, too.

"People move house," says Taylor, "and they remember to tell everyone except us." He opens the book to Mr Winchester's page. There is a college address from 30 years ago, and another address from 20 years ago. Envelopes are stapled to the page, to prove that Fortnum's has made all efforts to find him. "At least when people get a Fortnum's envelope," says Taylor, "they know it's not junk mail." There are 202 names in the book, some of whom have been traced, others whose cases are still taking up space that an expanding wine business craves. "That's the trouble with Piccadilly," says Alison Driver, of Fortnum's marketing department. "There's nowhere to expand."

When the lost property quest began two years ago, a wine employee would devote two days a week to it. Fortnum letters have made their way to Hong Kong, Singapore, the US. "A lot of the cases belong to Americans," explains Taylor. "Because their import laws are so restrictive, it always made sense for people to leave their wines here." Being of gentlemanly intent, Fortnum's rarely charged for the service. It depended on the customer, they say diplomatically, but most had high-class cellarage space for free, for a long time.

The Château Latour, for example, has been sitting here for about three decades. Its crate has been placed slightly apart from the other 100 ownerless boxes, in the back end of the wine reserves. "It's not very glamorous, I'm afraid," Taylor had said, leading me round, and it's true: there is no stained-glass window or Tudor beam. But it's not the unprepossessing décor that counts. It's the writing on the boxes.

"Not At Tatler", says one, of Mr EF Broomfield, long gone from the magazine's staff. "Not found", of Mr Moriarty. "No response", of the owner of four bottles of Chambolle Misigny 1953. We consult the book: one bottle of the Chambolle destroyed. "A lot of the stuff was rank," says Taylor. "The corks disintegrate, the alcohol attracts fruit flies, and it becomes a health hazard. We have to pour it down the sink." The staff always taste it first; so far, they've all been "interesting, but not 'wow' ". He points out a case of Beaujolais. "There are 10 cases of that. I mean, you keep a straight Beaujolais two years and a Beaujolais Villages ten. These are 50 years old!" And, by the look on his face, undrinkable.

The Châteaux, though, inspire another look entirely. He lifts a 1943 Château Margaux from its crate, bought by Mrs Winham of Green Street, W1, in 1954. "Good level – look, at mid-shoulder. That's still good." He fetches the two wine buyers' bibles: Robert Parker and Michael Broadbent. Parker doesn't mention it; Broadbent says it's "interesting", and the best of the war vintages. The glass is crinkled – "probably the best they could get in war-time," says Taylor.

But it's the Latour that inspires rhapsody. The bottles are beautiful enough, with perfectly preserved labels – no vulgar details such as volume or alcohol content – but Taylor is thinking of what's in them. "The level's at the top-shoulder. After 50 years. That's amazing – you'd expect it to be at the shoulder at best. I've never seen anything like this – in its original straw. I suppose it's because they were kept in such good conditions. But we would say that, wouldn't we?"

He says they sold some magnums of the same vintage 10 years ago, for £900 apiece. These bottles are worth £1,500 each, or 66 per cent more for half the volume. Robert Parker, the world's most influential wine critic, gave the 1949 a perfect score of 100. "That's probably why the price went up four times. This is probably the best investment anyone ever made."

Yet where is their owner, Mr Plummer? The red book shows a forlorn search. Solicitors, accountants, companies: all turn a blank. "They told us he left for the US 10 years ago, but we can't find him." Someone in the office remembers that Mr Plummer had "money and women troubles" when he came to buy the wine in 1953, and isn't surprised he's untraceable. As for Miss Elaine Taylor – wife? mistress? who knows? – she can't be found either.

Sometimes, the staff get lucky. One Singaporean gentleman, successfully traced through his Oxford college, sent a grateful letter back to the wine department, reminiscing about his days as captain of the Oxford tasting team, and beginning: "First, open the first case and take six bottles for you and your colleagues to enjoy. I'm most impressed by your record-keeping."

This shouldn't surprise, perhaps, in a store which has records of metal-lined food boxes sent to the Ashanti capital of Coomassie in 1873, or which knows that its joint founder, Charles Fortnum, was paid £10 5s 3d per quarter when he joined the service of Queen Charlotte as a footman.

The careful details in the red book are enough to conjure scenes of genteel decadence, of people long-dead or moved on. Picture Mrs de Romero, who ordered 120 half-bottles of 1952 Bollinger to consume in her Belgravia mansion flat: a glamorous Continental, perhaps in a Simone de Beauvoir turban, downing her Champagne daily as if it were milk. (It's the half-bottle size that is telling.) Or the unnamed rock star – "a model daughter and an ex-wife called Bianca," says Taylor with a smile – whose ex-wife laid down Champagne, tequila, cognac and some 1961 Bordeaux in 1974, causing Fortnum's some delicate agonising over which party to contact, and how to do it without causing offence to the latest rock star consort. Or PE Herbert, with his six bottles of Krug '61 – "the King of Champagnes" – who would have reaped a bigger profit if he'd turned up last year, on the 40th anniversary. (Some buyers will pay a premium for "anniversary" vintages.) Or Mr Byers, with his 12 bottles of 1955 Cockburn's Port, a great vintage; or Mr Masakasu Matsura, lately of Tonen Energy International, then of Japan, then of New York, and unresponsive to all letters to all addresses, though his £1,296 purchase was made only in 1990.

All the reserves can be claimed with proof of purchase, though it seems harsh to expect a 50-year-old receipt to surface. "A certificate of ownership would do," admits Taylor, for wines that were still in barrel when they were purchased. In fact, however, the standard of proof required varies. On one page in the red book, a phone bill has been carefully stapled, which was obviously considered proof enough, as the records have been closed. And when Mr Winchester collected his port, it was enough that he knew it was there and was who he said he was. But the £20,000 "pièce de résistance", says Taylor, will require a receipt, no question.

Time, meanwhile, is running out. If Mr Plummer or Ms Taylor don't surface soon, the final procedures will begin. Adverts in various wine journals must be posted, officially requesting the whereabouts of the wine's owners. If no one comes forward, Fortnum & Mason is entitled to sell the wine. Last year, this happened to four cases of '64 Krug Champagne, which had no records, sold to accounting firm KPMG for their 25th anniversary at £100 a bottle – a tidy profit for Fortnum's; although the cellar staff (who feel bad about charging £3.50 a year in cellarage "when we should still be providing it for free") can hardly be accused of being overwhelmingly profit-motivated. But there are no calls for reserves any more – these days, we have little patience waiting for young wines to mature, preferring them young, fresh and accessible.

Some of the reclaimed reserves will probably end up in vast bonded warehouses, which provide air-conditioning and hi-tech surroundings. But most, hopes Taylor, will be drunk.

I ask him every wine buyer's dreaded question: what's his favourite wine? "Everyone in the business will give you the same answer – it's the wine you're drinking in good company on a good day, and you're happy." He starts talking about a day in Bordeaux, sun shining, etc.

Yes, I say. But the Latour?

"Oh yes," he says, in a tone of infatuation. "I'd like that, definitely. A few thousand pounds' worth, at least. Gorgeous."