Pavarotti’s tailor sues for more than £550K after ‘leaky’ fridges at his luxury London flat ’caused his £1m French wine collection to go mouldy’

A multi-millionaire tailor has sued an assembly company for more than £550,000 after allegedly leaking refrigerators caused his £1million wine collection to grow mouldy.

Tom Reimer, who once dressed opera legend Luciano Pavarotti, said the value of his 1,500-bottle collection in his luxury London flat was sold to International Food Services Equipment Ltd. He claims it was ruined by malfunctions in three custom wine coolers installed by .

The fridges were installed in the Marylebone flat as part of an £8 million refurbishment in 2021.

The bulk of the collection consisted of award-winning ‘first growth’ claret reds from the Bordeaux and Rhone Valley regions, including bottles of the 1982 Chateau Mouton Rothschild, which could sell for more than £1,000, and the 2012 Chateau Petrus Pomerol, which sold for more than £2,000.

But Mr Reimer claims faulty refrigerators have led to condensation and mold growth on labels, and that some older wines are ‘probably’ ‘corked’, greatly reducing the value of his collection.

The master tailor is a wine lover with a collection of 20,000 premium bottles stored at his homes in London and Germany.

Rare wines are much less valuable on the collector’s market if their labels are damaged because buyers are reluctant to risk the wine itself being ruined.

Mr Reimer is suing the hardware company that installed the chillers at Central London County Court for more than £500,000 for the diminished value of his collection and another £50,000 for other costs and damages.

Mr. Reimer’s collection also included bottles of Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1982 with mold on the labels. Wine could sell for more than £1,000

Mr Reimer’s £8m luxury flat in Marylebone where he keeps his expensive wine collection

But Croydon-based International Food Services Equipment Ltd disputes the claim, denying that they designed doors or gaps that did not exceed the “hairline” gap, but was still an “industry standard design feature”.

They also blame Mr. Reimer for the tag damage because he repeatedly turned off the units when neighbors complained about the noise, and say they would never have undertaken the work if they had been told the alleged value of the collection.

The scion of a wealthy German family, Mr. Reimer carved out a highly lucrative career as a top tailor in Hamburg; where his company dressed Pavarotti in a white silk frock coat in the 1990s, as opposed to his customary black tails and white tie.

An avid wine collector, over the years he has amassed a massive collection of 20,000 bottles, mostly ultra-premium Bordeaux and Rhone Valley reds, most of which are cellared in Germany.

But his lawyer, Ololade Saromi, told the Recorder Sarah Ellington that the tailor had decided to install special coolers to ‘accommodate a number of bottles’ in England while he was carrying out a major renovation of his flat in The Regent, Marylebone.

Mr Reimer’s architect contacted International Food Design, which specializes in restaurant design, to ask if it could provide refrigerated wine storage for the flat, which was being converted into a ‘high-end residential apartment’.

The company ultimately installed a wine chilling system with sliding glass doors and remote condensers, at a cost to Mr Reimer of around £23,000.

Two refrigerators with a total capacity of 195 bottles were installed in the kitchen and a third cooler to serve 1,188 bottles was installed on the first floor porch in March 2021.

But Mr Reimer said the disaster was caused by the 1cm gap in the fridge doors extending to their full height, leading to cold air leaking from the units and hot air entering.

He claims that the ‘constant alternation of hot and cold air’ leads to temperature fluctuations that are fatal to wine cabinets that must maintain a constant temperature between 12°C and 13°C.

Mr Reimer’s lawyer said: ‘The refrigerators had to work harder to maintain the required temperature.

‘The capacitors that perform the cooling function were constantly working, instead of working and stopping as they should, because the gap caused a constant exchange of hot and cold air.

‘This caused temperature fluctuation and instability, which the capacitors tried to compensate for.

‘The gaps in the refrigerator doors resulted in loss of environmental control, overworking of the condenser, vibration, overheating, condensation and resulting damage to the plaintiff’s wine collection.

‘Condensation settled on stored wine bottles, causing wine labels to mold and crumble.

‘This probably also caused the cork to break down and damage the wine contents.’

Overall, Mr Reimer is claiming £499,452 under the Consumer Rights Act for allegedly reducing the value of his £1 million London wine collection due to label damage.

Mr Reimer claims the disaster occurred because a 1cm gap in the refrigerator doors extending to full height allowed cold air to leak from the units and warm air to enter

The case also included a moldy bottle of Chateau Petrus Pomerl 2012 that sold for more than £2,000.

He is also seeking further compensation to cover costs such as the £14,000 subsequently spent on commercial wine storage and the nearly £23,000 he paid for the installation of coolers.

But the assembly company’s lawyers say any loss of air through the ‘thin line’ gap, designed to allow movement between the doors, would have no effect on the temperature in the coolers and deny that they designed the cooler doors in any case.

Defense barrister Matthew Winn-Smith said: ‘The defendant did not design the door system for the wine fridge.

‘This is simply part of a standard unit and the air gap complained of is a necessary element of a properly working sliding door system.’

In addition to arguing that Mr. Reimer was courting disaster by shutting down the units to appease his neighbors, the company says they would never have gotten involved with the project had they known the value of the wine collection.

Mr Winn-Smith said the £23,000 price tag for the cooler installation was ‘extremely modest’ compared to premium wine storage specialists and cellarists who would ask £190,000.

‘No information was given regarding the storage of approximately £1 million worth of fine wine,’ he told the judge.

‘Nothing was communicated about the need for particularly quiet condensing units.

‘If it had been suggested that, before the contract was signed, it was thought that the refrigerators would store £1 million worth of wine, it is almost certain that the defendant would not have signed the contract.

‘This is not something they were ever supplied to do.’

Emphasizing that the company had no role in the design of the wine fridge door system, Mr Winn-Smith suggested that any moisture or condensation was simply due to the coolers being closed regularly.

“The defendant believes that any damage to the plaintiff’s wine collection was the result of Mr. Reimer – or his representatives or a third party – turning off the wine refrigerators because they were too noisy for his living environment,” the lawyer said.

He said Mr. Reimer was “under pressure from both his landlord and his neighbors,” which “explains why he or someone else might have closed the units.”

‘If they had been left open at the time, in our case the wine would have been sufficiently chilled and moisture levels would have been good, meaning none of the wine bottle labels would have been damaged by condensation.’

But Mr Reimer denies turning off the chillers to appease his neighbours, but claims noise and vibration have risen to “excessive” levels as capacitors in the units work overtime “due to constant demand from the space”.

The trial continues.