Alex was one of my first clients. He reached out to me after meeting me in a wine shop in Westchester, New York. We discussed French and Italian vintages in the shop and he was impressed with my knowledge on the subject. I gave him a card and he reached out a few days later, asking what I could do about his wine collection. We resolved to get together at his 8,500-square-foot home in Greenwich, Connecticut so he could walk me through his cellar.
When I say I was stunned by the sheer beauty of the cellar he had created, I mean I was stunned. Racks of some of the most incredible wines I could imagine. DRCs from the 50s and 60s. Bordeaux from the 40s to the 80s. Napa and Sonoma wines from the 80s to the early 2000s. Tokaj and Sauternes and some sake he had been convinced would be something he would drink eventually, but never got around to.
As we walked through the aisles, we talked about what his collection meant to him, and what his plans were for the future. Would he sell them? Drink them? Pass them onto his kids? Give them to friends as gifts? Keep them and just watch them age as he did? He was not really sure. We were making our way towards a central seating area surrounded by the wines he deemed most ready to drink. He pulled two beautiful glasses and a decanter, and popped the cork on a 1953 Grand Vin de Chateau Latour. He let me keep the bottle afterwards. That is the bottle in the photo above.
The wine was phenomenal, stored close to perfectly. Alex noted some water damage on the label which was there prior to his purchase of the bottle at auction. Dried red fruits, tobacco, that particular leather flavor that seeps into Bordeaux. I remember it fondly.
To answer his question, I said it was clear that this was a collection he cared about. The care was found everywhere, from the temperature and moisture control in the atmosphere to the way the bottles were carefully rotated, to the beautiful seating area that I was sure he got plenty of use out of. Everything was designed around this collection. I flipped it around on him and asked him where he thought his collection was weak. He revealed that he knew vintages from 2000 and prior, but more recent vintages confounded him. That is where he wanted my help: finding newer wines to add to his collection, to rest and to age, and to be told when to drink them for maximum enjoyment.
That excited me. I love finding wines for people. I love helping people discover things they did not know about their palates, and Alex was in a fortunate position where funding his passion had no barrier. We discussed specific wines and regions he wanted to focus on and, finishing the bottle together, I took my leave.
Over the next several days, I focused solely on building the proposal for Alex's cellar. Wines from Napa and Sonoma, my specialty, became the focus (particularly those with French winemakers; I cannot tell you how many Philippe Melka wines are in Alex's cellar now), with French, Italian, Australian, Eastern European, and Spanish wines filling it out. The proposal was simple: I send you a list of the best wines for a given vintage, you approve, I get them for you.
Alex is my longest-running retainer and I am proud of the work I have done for him. I have increased his holdings by hundreds of bottles, and we get together (virtually now) once a month to discuss future purchases. I will never forget that bottle of 1953 Grand Vin de Chateau Latour, nor many of the other beautiful wines I was able to help him find. His holdings of 2007, 2009, 2012, and 2014 Napa wines remain some of my favorites of all time.
You can read Alex's review of my services here.