When Dana mentioned offhandedly that her husband Mike rents wine storage space in Austin, I figured she meant that he had a locker at one of the cheap storage facilities on the outskirts of downtown. I couldn’t have been more far off!

On a Friday night, Adam and I met Mike and Dana at the Brown Building on 8th and Colorado and got cocktails at The Brown Bar.

The Brown Building was designed by Charles Henry Page, a leading Austin architect, in 1938. Constructed by Herman Brown, the building featured elaborate Deco-style offices that housed congressman and future U.S. president LBJ.

After enjoying fancy martini’s and a scotch, we headed down to Vault 55, a members-only wine cellar beneath the Brown Building. The above photo shows Mike using his fingerprint to allow us access to the space.

The Johnson family wine vault was the first we saw on the left after we entered the cool room. Wrought iron “vines” climbed up the gate. There was another special vault with “B” painted in silver – maybe the private vault for the Brown family?

Mike shared his wine locker with two friends and one had recently vacated his third of the space. They showed us some of their favorite and most valuable wines and told stories of epic dinners where bottle upon bottle were opened and enjoyed.

To learn more about Vault 55 and information about collecting and storing wine, check out their website. You can also schedule a tour of the wine vault by calling Doug at 512.809.1717 or Debbie at 512.923.9234. I hear there are parties and tastings there from time to time too.