It was the first cellar I ever visited and it was cool even when
the outside temp got up around 40C because the building was made of
stone and the cellar was underground.
Just a quick observation on theory vs. practice:
Fourier, having discovered his eponymous series, was able to use them
to calculate how deep one has to go to damp out daily or yearly
temperature variations; when compared with the prevailing practice
for cellar depths — apparently people don't care for shallow cellars
that get too warm in the summer, but on the other hand they also
don't care to (a) dig any more than they have to, or, more
importantly (b) haul things up and down* any more steps than they
really must — the expressed equilibrium converges nicely to the
theoretical result.
-Dave
* happy is the peasant whose cellar access is sideways, into the
mountainside. In the old days, the swiss would keep their wines and
cheeses in such caves, "capitalizing" otherwise perishable grapes and
milk. These days, they're a little more capital — and technology —
intensive and squirrel away entire hydroelectric generation plants in
the mountain.
