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Smith's...service is created for collectors who need help keeping track of their collections. OnceSmith works his magic, his clients know exactly what bottles they have, where each bottle is located, and when it should be opened.
Smith has a unique mix of qualifications for the job, but a sense of orgainzation is the most important. "I always loved putting things in order."
For those who require a list ofor their collections, the benfits aren't just practical. "There's also pride," Smith says. "Wine isn't widgets."
Matters of Taste: Know What You've Got.
For serious collectors, getting a wine cellar organized can be a technological feat for an expert. That someone is Jeff Smith.
"I had one client tell me he had 3,000 bottles..."Plus or minus 10 percent," Smith says. "He has really good wines, so I said, 'That's 300 very expensive bottles that you don't know if you have or where they are. That's like saying you can't find a Mercedses in your living room."
I know a lot of people who can fix their cars or tend their gardens, but that's not how they want to spend their spare time, and they have the money to get someone else to do it for them," he says. "The same is true for their wine collections."
In a sense, Smith is something of a gardener himself. He buys and plants and prunes--helping clients figure out what wines they need to complete their collections, as well as which wines they should drink up or sell off.
"What Jeff does is just indispensible," says Freddie DeMann, a producer and manager.
Jeff Smith lives and drinks in Beverly Hills, 90210. He describes his job as that of a forensic oenologist, someone who roots around cellars separating the plonk from the la-di-da, spackling gaps in clients' collections, making maps and dealing with bottlenecks that have nothing to do with the traffic on Rodeo Drive.
Smith is the autor of "The Best Cellar," a book that demystifies much of the pomp and pedantry in the wine trade.
Cellars Market
"For collectors who want to keep track of their thousands of bottles of fine wine, Jeff Smith is the organization man."
He calls it "wine cellar management." Clients call it a godsend.
He only organizes wine cellars but the world might be better if Jeff Smith ran it. He slays chaos and creates order, then hands you a database to keep it that way.
Wally's Wine partner Christian Navarro says smith is uniquely qualified. "You need to have a true understanding of wine, software and people," he says. "He's one of the few people I've met who can do all three." To those credentials, Smith would add a fourth. He's willing. "This is dirty, physical, cold work," he says. "It's unpleasant and people don't want to do it."
Jeff Smith, author of "The Best Cellar," says that rather than analyze his potential clients tasting preferences, he tries to figure out their collecting style. He outlines 13 collector types, including "Bargain Hunters," "Bankers" (who hope to sell the wine for a profit later), and "Point Men," whose focus on ratings leads them to churn their collections to get rid of low-scoring bottles. Mr. Smith says he'll assemble cellars for all types. The inventory spreadsheets he includes with each one has price data, ratings from Robert Parker and the Wine Spectator, and when to drink each bottle.
Not all clients heed Mr. Smith's advice. Mr. Bursteen and his wife have drunk only a few of the 420 bottles Mr. Smith chose for them, despite the consultant's email reminders. "For a good time, go to column 12, row M," Mr. Smith wrote recently, nudging them toward a 1994 Joseph Phelps Insignia.
At Your Service: Savvy Sommelier
Regarding his education, Smith, the son of a major wine collector, says, "I learned at the foot of a collector, then did my graduate work in wine cellars." Smith is so enthusaistic about collecting great wine, he's written a book about it titled "The Best Cellar."
