A Truly Personal Wine Service Voted Best British Independent Wine Merchant 2014
Private Cellar is a boutique wine retailer that has quickly gained an esteemed reputation. As a wine merchant the company boasts extensive experience in the industry and since 2005, the Private Cellar team has been coupling a real passion for wine with an enormous dedication to their customers.
The small team promises a personal service delivering professionally chosen and exquisite tasting wines to their valued clientele. Private Cellar now has 3,000 active customers and manages more than 30,000 cases of customers’ stocks in LCB’s Vinotheque in Burton on Trent.
Private Cellar was founded by three friends – previously colleagues at London wine merchant Corney & Barrow. The team now boasts a combined experience of over 160 years, providing a truly personal wine service and offering a focused range of wines that are outstanding in their category, sourced directly from growers they admire and are proud to represent. As former senior management members of esteemed wine merchants (Corney & Barrow are HM the Queen’s Wine Merchant and the firm has 235 years of history) the team harbours fantastic grower relationships alongside incomparable access to collectors’ cellars and rare stocks with excellent provenance for the company’s Fine Wine List.
All wines are sourced by Buying Director Nicola Arcedeckne-Butler MW, one of only 319 Masters of Wine in the World. Fluent in French and Italian, Arcedeckne-Butler is as comfortable sourcing wines from the New World as she is from the Old World. She has also recently taken on a prestigious role as a member of the advisory team to the British Government Hospitality Department which is charged with the wine selection for events hosted by the British Government when receiving overseas dignitaries.
Managing Director is Andrew Gordon who began his career in the wine trade in 1984. He joined Corney & Barrow in 1986 and left the management team in 2004 (after quadrupling the company’s sales) to spend more time doing what he really loves: building fantastic wine cellars and long term relationships with suppliers and customers alike.
Private Cellar’s pedigree has been validated with their expert choices regularly appearing in the press. Amongst other press mentions, a 2010 Chablis garnered attention from The Times last year whilst the 2013 vintage of Château de Sours Rosé from Bordeaux was featured in financial magazine, Money Week. The company itself caught the attention of the industry with features in the Guardian, Money Week, Daily Telegraph, Times, Daily Mail, Spectator Magazine, GQ and The Field to name a few titles.
In 2014, Private Cellar were voted best British Independent Wine Merchant as a result of a writing competition from top wine writer Jancis Robinson MW (jancisrobinson.com) to find the best independent wine merchant in the world. Private Cellar pride themselves in exclusively purchasing wines that they believe are the finest in the world, and which they know their customers will love with their keen eye on the price-to-quality ratio. They are just as passionate about their customers as their wines and enjoy sharing their insights at formal tastings and informal dinners.
Customers have praised Private Cellar for the company’s honesty, “the versatile, personal nature of their business”, and the enjoyment that they get out of meeting with and buying wine from the team with one customer saying “it’s great to see such an enthusiastic team of colleagues so tuned in to their customers and to each other; a spirit that is often missing from larger companies today.” (privatecellar.co.uk)
