WINE & SPIRITS

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Sommeliers in the company's advisory team can remotely access a cellar's content. "We have collectors in Korea, Germany and South America," says de Baubigny. "We can work with them from anywhere on the planet." The online collections are linked to reviews, ratings, tasting notes and market valuations. He continues, "We send alerts on when to sell and when to drink."

The system goes something like this: When acquiring wine, a collector sends the purchase directly to a Vintrust facility (there will soon be six of them across the country). There, each bottle is photographed, bar-coded and logged-in to the online Wine Management Account. (For existing collections, Vintrust dispatches photographers to the collector's home.) The fee structure is simple: $2 a bottle for the inventory process, and 25 cents a month per bottle for storage. Bottles can be stored either at the Vintrust facility (with delivery upon request) or in the collector's cellar. A personal sommelier is assigned to assess and discuss each wine with the client.

Among the novel aspects of Vintrust's approach is their use of sommeliers—an unbiased group—as opposed to importers or dealers who might have an agenda. "We offer only top picks from the top palates," says de Baubigny, who assembled a nationwide team of 25 sommeliers.

One such sommelier, Gillian Balance of the PlumpJack Group in San Francisco, personally takes care of a half dozen Vintrust clients. "Often they'll e-mail me the menu for an upcoming dinner party and ask me to pair wines," she says. "One client wanted to serve his entire Kistler collection at his wedding. He had six different vintages from the Hudson, Durrell, Vine Hill and McCrea single vineyards, and each bottle goes for as much as $250.