Wine
Meet the ‘Wine Whisperers,’ Fancy Grape Fixers for Billionaires
According to their clients, personal wine advisers are “saving wine lives.”
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Last year, one of Matt Wilson’s wine clients asked him to orchestrate a dinner in Las Vegas, with a $100,000 wine budget. Easy for Wilson; he rounded up such rarities as 1961 Hermitage La Chapelle, 1985 La Tache, and 1834 Madeira. But he also had to convince chef Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin to give the 16 guests a cooking lesson and prepare the dinner.
Wilson, who launched Napa-based Company Fine Wine last fall, is what I call a “wine whisperer,” a category of white-glove wine fixers for the ultra-wealthy that’s growing rapidly. Some call themselves personal wine advisers. Others, such as Wilson, function more like private wine merchants. All offer a range of services to help cash-rich, time-poor aficionados manage their wine lives.