By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2026-07-23 11:40:24 | Updated at 2026-07-27 12:09:29
4 days ago
A multi-millionaire master tailor who dressed opera star Luciano Pavarotti has sued a kitchen fitting company for more than £550,000 after leaky fridges allegedly caused his £1million fine wine collection to go mouldy.
Tom Reimer claims the value of the vast collection at his luxury London flat was severely diminished due to faults with special wine chillers installed by International Food Services Equipment Ltd.
Three fridges with a capacity of 1,383 bottles were installed at the property in Marylebone as part of an £8million refurbishment in 2021.
But Mr Reimer claims the fitters left a 1cm gap running the full height of the fridge doors, allowing cool air to leak from the units and warm air to enter, causing temperature and humidity levels to fluctuate.
The tailor alleges that this caused condensation and mould growth on the labels and 'probably' left some of the vintage wines 'corked', slashing the value of his collection.
Croydon-based International Food Services Equipment said Mr Reimer was responsible for any damage to the labels, claiming he repeatedly turned the units off when his neighbours complained about the noise they made.
The firm said the doors had no more than 'hairline' gap - and were installed to industry standard.
Much of his collection was made up of prized 'first growth' clarets from the Bordeaux and Rhone Valley regions of France.
These included bottles of 1982 Chateau Mouton Rothschild, which can sell for more than £1,500.
This red wine famously earned legendary American wine critic Robert Parker's first 100 out of 100 score and has a rare signed label painted by John Huston, who famously wrote and directed the 1941 classic film noir The Maltese Falcon.
The fridges also housed bottles of 2012 Chateau Petrus Pomerol, which sell for between £2,500 and £3,600. The wine is highly-prized because just 30,000 bottles a year are produced from the small 28-acre vineyard just east of Bordeaux.
Master tailor Mr Reimer is a wine lover with a 20,000-strong collection of prime bottles, kept at his homes in London and Germany.
Rare wines are much less valuable on the collectors' market if their labels are damaged because buyers are wary of taking a risk on the wine itself being ruined.
At Central London County Court, Mr Reimer is now suing the outfitting company which installed the chillers for more than £500,000 for the reduced value of his collection, as well as another £50,000 in other costs and losses.
International Food Services Equipment is a world-leading company who install kitchens and fridges in some of the most exclusive restaurants, cafés and private homes in the UK.
Multi-millionaire tailor Tom Reimer claims the faulty fridges slashed the value of his luxury French wine collection
Mr Reimer's collection included bottles of this Chateau Mouton Rothschild 1982 that had developed mould on the labels. The fine wine can sell for more than £1,500 and have a rare signed 60th anniversary label
A mouldy bottle of Chateau Petrus Pomerol 2012, which retails for up to £3,500, has also featured in the court case
Disaster struck because a 1cm gap on the fridge doors, extending to their full height, resulted in cool air leakage from the units, and warm air to enter, Mr Reimer claims
Surrey-based International Food Services Equipment Ltd is fighting the claim, denying they designed the doors or the no more than 'hairline' gap, which was nevertheless an 'industry standard design feature'.
They say they wouldn't have taken the job on at all if they had been told the alleged value of the collection.
Mr Reimer, a scion of a wealthy German family, carved out a highly lucrative career as a top tailor in Hamburg, where in the 1990s his company dressed Pavarotti with a white silk tailcoat as a contrast to his customary black tails and white tie.
As an avid wine collector, he has built a colossal collection of 20,000 bottles over the years, many of them ultra-prime Bordeaux and Rhone Valley reds, mostly cellared in Germany.
But while carrying out a major refurbishment of his apartment at The Regent, Marylebone, the tailor decided to install special chillers to 'house some bottles' in the UK, his barrister, Ololade Saromi, told Recorder Sarah Ellington.
Mr Reimer's architect contacted International Food Design, which specialises in restaurant design, asking whether it could supply cooled wine storage for the flat, which was being transformed into a 'high-end residential apartment'.
The company ultimately installed a wine cooling system, featuring sliding glass doors and remote condensers, at a cost to Mr Reimer of about £23,000.
The two fridges were installed in March 2021 with a total capacity for 195 bottles in the kitchen, and a third cooler catering for 1,188 bottles on the first floor patio.
However, Mr Reimer says disaster struck because a 1cm gap on the fridge doors, extending to their full height, resulted in cool air leakage from the units, and warm air entering.
The 'constant exchange of warm and cold air' produced temperature fluctuations which were fatal for wine fridges required to maintain a steady temperature of 12C to 13C, he claims.
Mr Reimer's barrister said: 'To maintain the required temperature, the fridges had to work harder.
'The condensers which performed the cooling function were continuously working as opposed to starting and stopping as required because the gap caused a constant exchange of warm and cold air.
'This produced temperature fluctuation and instability for which the condensers tried to compensate.
'The gaps in the fridge doors caused the loss of environmental control, excessive condenser operation, vibration, overheating, condensation and consequent damage to the claimant's wine collection.
'The condensation settled on the stored wine bottles and caused the moulding and disintegration of the wine labels.
'This probably also resulted in cork disintegration and damage to the wine content.'
Overall, Mr Reimer is claiming £499,452 under the Consumer Rights Act for the alleged reduced value of his £1million London wine collection, due to the label damage.
Mr Reimer's £8million luxury flat in Marylebone where he stored his expensive wine collection
He also wants further compensation to cover expenses such as over £14,000 subsequently spent on commercial wine storage and the roughly £23,000 he paid for the coolers to be installed.
But lawyers for the fitting company say any air loss through the 'hairline' gap, designed to allow for movement between the doors, would have had no impact on temperature in the chillers, and deny that they designed the cooler doors in any case.
Defence barrister Matthew Winn-Smith said: 'The defendant did not design the wine fridge door system.
'It is simply part of a standard unit and the airgap complained of is a necessary element of a properly functioning sliding door system.'
And on top of suggesting that Mr Reimer courted disaster by turning off the units to pacify his neighbours, the company says they would never have tangled with the project in the first place had they known about the value of the wine collection.
The £23,000 price tag for the cooler installation was 'extremely modest' compared with top-notch wine storage specialists and cellarists, which would have charged £190,000, said Mr Winn-Smith.
'Nothing was communicated about the intended storage of circa £1million of fine wine,' he told the judge.
'Nor was anything communicated about the need for especially quiet running condensing units.
'Had it been suggested before the contract was concluded that it was intended the fridges would store £1million worth of wine, it is almost certain that the defendant would not have entered into the contract.
'It is simply not what their goods are ever supplied to do.'
Emphasising that the company had no part in designing the wine fridge door system, Mr Winn-Smith suggested any damp or condensation was simply due to the coolers being regularly turned off.
'The defendant believes that any damage caused to the claimant's wine collection was the result of Mr Reimer - or his agents or a third party - turning off the wine fridges because they were too noisy for his residential setting,' said the barrister.
He said Mr Reimer was 'under pressure from both his landlord and his neighbours' which 'explains why he, or someone else, would have turned off the units'.
'Had they been left on then, on our case, the wine would have been adequately refrigerated, and the moisture levels would have been fine, causing no condensation damage to any of the wine bottle labels.'
Mr Reimer, however, denies shutting off the coolers to placate his neighbours, although claiming that noise and vibration cranked up to 'excessive' levels due to condensers on the units working overtime 'due to constant demand generated by the gap'.
The trial continues.
