You recently visited the Octavian Cellars. What struck you most about the set-up?
Having spent many years as a federal regulator overseeing imported and exported wine, I understand the importance of accurate records. What I had not fully appreciated was the extent to which the Octavian team treats documentation, verification, and resolving discrepancies as part of caring for the wine. One statistic from the visit stood out: approximately 40% of incoming paperwork requires some level of reconciliation.
Most discrepancies are administrative rather than fraudulent, but I guess diligence is needed to match incoming wine against correct records?
Absolutely! Octavian are masters at this. Every case receives a unique code. Movements are tracked and logged. Customs duties and taxes are managed. Insurance and inventory are kept current. On their own, these are ordinary administrative tasks. Together, they reflect a disciplined approach to custodianship.
Many collections remain with Octavian professional custody for six to eight years so even something as routine as replacing a damaged outer carton is done in a way that preserves a case’s identity and the continuity of its history. It was a reminder that stewardship is not defined by one significant decision, but by thousands of careful ones made consistently over time.
You’ve mentioned that physical care of the wine and the maintenance of its records must be treated as inseparable. Why is this?
A custodian cannot control everything that happens to a wine throughout its life. It can, however, preserve a reliable account of the wine while in its care. As a regulator, I knew that this kind of documentation rarely attracts attention when things are going well. Its importance becomes clear only when questions arise about identity, ownership, taxes, condition, or compliance. The same principle applies to fine wine. Good records do not create provenance on their own, but they provide the evidence needed to demonstrate it when it matters most.
Another takeaway from the visit was the relationship between custody and ownership. Professional storage is not simply about protecting a valuable bottle; it is also about protecting a collector’s interest in that bottle while it remains in someone else’s care. The careful identification of individual cases helps preserve that connection. It is an aspect of custodianship that goes unnoticed until it is challenged.
What do you think most people fail to appreciate when wine is traded?
A wine’s history is most at risk not while it sits still, but at the points where it changes hands between producer, merchant, auction house, and collector. Each transaction is a chance for the record to slip, which is why an unbroken chain of provenance cannot rest on any single party; it has to be carried consistently by everyone who touches the wine along the way. Technologies such as blockchain, digital asset registers, and AI-assisted authentication will likely make that chain easier to verify. But on my visit, it was the discipline of trusted custodians, people checking and correcting the record case by case, that struck me as the industry’s real first line of defense, and likely to remain so even as the tools around it improve.
So every stage in wine’s journey has to be rigorously documented?
I used to think of provenance as mainly a record of the past. Not any longer. Every period of responsible stewardship adds another documented chapter to a wine’s history. And that history is only worth as much as its ability to be proven later. Collectors may buy wine for its vintage and vineyard. But the market ultimately rewards what can be demonstrated afterwards and that is stewardship at work.