A Night in the Wine Cellar: The Story is Life Changing Pt. 5

Forrest Kelly
00:00:00

Welcome. Welcome to The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast

In our last conversation, we kind of learned about your relationship with rich. And I was just going to say in our email conversations back and forth with rich, he mentioned that you were. That you can be pretentious.

Wait, that's not pretentious.

He said that there was an epiphany bottle of wine that you had where it was like, kind of changed your life and said, okay, we got to do something with this. Do you remember what it was?

Damon Raque
00:00:32

I absolutely do. Yeah. It was The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast, 2006 Gemstone, which is a small boutique producer at a Napa Valley headquartered in Yonville.

Just to tell the quick story, I had a friend of mine's restaurant, and I was sitting at the bar, and he had come off of a two or three month dry period where he was just kind of taking a break from drinking.

And I was at the bar having dinner, and I feel this tap on my shoulder and a grab on my arm, and I get pulled out of my chair, and it's my buddy that had come off the wagon. He pulls me up.

We go back into kind of the bowels of the restaurant, into the wine cellar in the back, and I come into the wine cellar forest, and there's these wine crates in a circle, and there's all these bottles on the floor.

And it's a bunch of wholesalers and wine distributors that were in Atlanta, and they were kind of celebrating my buddies being re released into the wild, coming off of the wagon for two or three months. And so we sat down and started drinking wine.

And the more we drank, and the later it got, you know, the more expensive, crazier bottles we started opening, which is kind of funny how that happens. It should be the exact opposite, right?

You should open the expensive stuff first and then finish with the less expensive stuff when you're not going to remember what you were drinking. But all that to say, we had some amazing wine, and that was just a fantastic evening in terms of just fun and spontaneity.

And of all the bottles we drank, it was this particular bottle. But I walked away, I couldn't get it out of my head, and I just like, wow, I didn't know wine could taste like this.

And that kind of sparked the journey of me really getting interested in wine. So I researched the wine and I searched it out and found out who the winemaker was.

And then as you know, you kind of go down these rabbit holes and start tasting more and drinking more and figuring out what you like and why you like it and attending tastings and wine dinners and meeting other people, and I. The social aspect increases, and next thing you know, you're. You're addicted. So that was kind of my story, and I'm sticking to it, as they say.

Forrest Kelly
00:02:37

What wine was it again? Say it again.

Damon Raque
00:02:39

2006 Gemstone.

Forrest Kelly
00:02:41

Those of you listening, if you'd like a bit of a discount, perhaps, on your membership to bottle bank, bring that wine in as a thank you for setting this whole thing up for Damon, and he'll give you something, maybe booby prize, probably. I like the way you think with the casino. My wife loves to gamble, and so she's got her own private host who calls her and texts her all the time.

Benefits and things like that. Are you guys going to have something like that?

Damon Raque
00:03:11

We probably will. We'll have a full staff, obviously, servers and bartenders and a chef and a cooking team and a team of sommeliers and wine professionals.

And I, again, we created several opportunities for entertaining and private dining experiences for our members.

So having an events coordinator slash members concierge, that role will absolutely exist to coordinate all the different activities because we'll have wine dinners and tastings and events that are member specific, that'll be invitation only for members. So having a person, again, to kind of white glove that coordination and their services will definitely be a part of the bottle bank team for sure.

Forrest Kelly
00:03:50

Okay, is there any cool story or anything about the vault security and surveillance?

Damon Raque
00:03:56

No, it'll be one entrance and one exit only. We'll have cameras, some you can see, some that you can't see. There's so many ways to do it. Now. We initially looked at biometric entry.

The problem with that is some of that technology can be glitchy.

And if you have to replace the thumbprint or the eye scan, you have to have all the members come back, engage with the process to get their fingerprint or their retina scan into the unit. So now there's platforms that are mobile on your phone that allowed it just to swipe.

The phone will give you access to not only your individual vault, but also access into the vault facility. We all have our phones on there. Don't have to worry about carrying a key with us or a membership card. So that's.

That's the direction that we're looking in.

Forrest Kelly
00:04:44

Who's bringing wine to the next biggest? It's Damon Raque, and he's living the dream. Bottlebank.com. he's co founder, too, Damon Raque.

The name bottle bank's the game from fine wine to sellers. He's changing the frame. Chandelier bar, tasty nights, so divine. Private events with the perfect fake one. But The Best 5 Minute Wine Podcast. Don't forget my favorite part. Please like and follow. Close.