Berry Bros, & Rudd Wine Merchants

London, UK

Founded by Widow Bourne in 1698, Berry Bros. & Rudd is one of the oldest wine merchants in the UK. With a colourful history that encompasses wines on board the Titanic and sheltering Napoleon III in the cellars beneath the shop, two Royal Warrants, eight Masters of Wine and multiple other accolades under their belt, Berry Bros. & Rudd are justly proud of their past.

More than three centuries after setting up shop, the company continues to trade from its original Georgian premises at No. 3 St James' Street. It is here in the Sussex cellar hospitality area of Berry Bros. & Rudd that UFO's fibre optic lighting delicately adorns the arched ceiling of the subterranean mezzanine level.

Mark Sutton Vane, the world class lighting designer, wanted to light the amazing space with no visible light fittings and decided to use tiny fibre optics hidden in the grout between the hand made tiles of the ceiling. He also wanted the system to provide the emergency lighting which was another challenge. We were very excited to be asked to supply the fibre optic lighting system and to help solve the challenges. We had supplied fibre optics for Mark Sutton Vane's design of the lighting of the Crown Jewels, so we have experience of his very high standards.

In keeping with these requirements we created a custom end ferrule and fitting which was installed in the grout between the tiles. The fittings were finished in black to allow them to blend in with their surrounding environment and to ensure that they went unnoticed when the fibre optics were switched off.

Twelve of our Sirius LED light sources were used to power fibre optics and these were specially programmed to ensure that they would carry on running in the event of a power failure. We supplied units with Sutton Vane Associates' requirement for 3000K colour temperature and high CRI which would not distort the colour of the wine on display.

>Lighting design by Sutton Vane Associates