What does a 3-star Michelin restaurant really have in its wine cellar?

At the Wine Circle's Napa Trek last Wednesday, we answered exactly that question. We had the privilege of touring Thomas Keller's famed The French Laundry, including the restaurant itself, the beautiful garden, the renovated kitchen, and last but not least... the wine cellar!

Custom-made and kept at a precise 58 degrees, this cellar was absolutely beautiful. Each of the wines is carefully tagged with its own SKU and precisely organized so sommeliers can find what they are looking for. With thousands of wines available, I can imagine how much of a headache this all is to manage! And that's exactly right - TFL employees two people full-time to stock and manage cellar inventory.

A beautiful wall of wine storage in TFL's wine cellar

The French Laundry historically holds a range of newer vintage, beautiful and approachable Napa and Sonoma wines to age-old European classics. But having such a stock of old wines begs the question - have you held these forever? If not, how do you source them?

We asked the Wine Director and Head Sommelier, Erik Johnson, exactly that. TFL sources a lot of their old wines from collectors. How do they diligence the wines they are buying to ensure they have been properly cellared? They work with collectors with whom they have decades-long relationships. Trust is the name of the game. When you're buying a $10K bottle that's been stored for 20 years, improper storage is NOT something they want to risk.

Erik giving us a tour of the cellar

To give each of their guests a truly exceptional and once-in-a-lifetime experience, instead of producing a by-the-book, always the same tasting menu for each customer each night, TFL does a customized pairing menu. That means you describe your taste, the sommelier considers the foods and sauces for the night, and you share your price point. Some people want to spend a couple hundred dollars a person, some a couple thousand. This makes Head Sommelier Erik's job always a fun surprise. What a task!

I snapped a few pictures of some of the very interesting and standout wines that I was able to spot on my stroll through:

To pay homage to our recent case, some 1982 and 1989 Chateau Lafite:

Some old Romanee-Conti (probably the most expensive on their list, Erik said):

And finally... a 1989 Opus One. If only we could have tasted it...

Thank you to Ilana and the rest of the Wine Circle leadership for making such an amazing Trek possible!