Philadelphia-based Zipco Wine Cellar Services designs and builds wine cellars to perfectly meet their client’s needs — but its services do not come cheap, writes Lettie Teague for The Wall Street Journal.

The company’s president, Scot “Zippy” Ziskind, likes to raise the matter of money from the start.

“I want to see if they understand what it costs to build a cellar,” he said.

He asks his potential clients about the size of their wine collection, which is usually 1,200–1,500 bottles, the type of wines they collect, and the frequency of their consumption.

“I always ask people how long it took them to acquire 1,000 bottles and how much they drink,” he said.

Ziskind, who is a trained mechanical engineer, has been building cellars for nearly half a century. Usually, a basic 10×10 cellar costs $30,000–$50,000. Still, he built cellars that cost five times that amount.

In addition to building new cellars, he often amends the work of others.

“Thirty percent of my work is fixing other people’s mistakes,” he said.

Read more about Zipco Wine Cellar Services in The Wall Street Journal.