5 minute read
Wine Rescue
A new wine storage facility fills a missing link for owners of fine wine collections in St. Pete.
BY MARCIA BIGGS
A new business quietly opened in St. Pete earlier this year that should have local wine collectors seriously happy. Part storage facility/part private club, St. Pete Cellars offers secure, state-of-the-art wine storage and a personal concierge to assist you. Clients become “members” upon signing up for the storage service, and the benefits include a member portal with online access to a catalog of your wine inventory (including a photo of each label), and the ability to have your selected bottle or bottles available for pickup with only an advance phone call. Member tastings and dinners are also part of the perks.
A service-oriented wine storage facility was sorely needed in St. Pete, say owners Roy and Rhonda Whitehead, who came up with the idea for St. Pete Cellars after moving to St. Pete and having nowhere to store their extensive collection of wine. Coming from Seattle, where vineyards, wineries and wine storage are not uncommon, the Whiteheads faced a conundrum.
“One thing we didn’t think about when we decided to move here was our wine collection,” explains Roy, who had retired after 40 years as a banking executive. “We’ve been collecting for about 25 years and in the Pacific Northwest there are plenty of places to store your wine, so we just took it for granted there would be a place like that here. Then we got here and discovered there was no place in Pinellas County to store your wine. So out of desperation, we decided to do this ourselves.”
The Whiteheads had previously lived in Tampa Bay in the early 1990s, when Roy was a regional president of First Union Bank. After moving to Seattle, they would come back to the area to visit relatives, and after retiring, the Whiteheads kept coming back and eventually fell in love with St. Pete. “The city has changed so much in the last couple decades, we just couldn’t believe it,” contributes Rhonda. “Every time we came back we saw change. The art scene, the restaurants, the high-rises and the walkability downtown. It was all very attractive to us.” They moved here permanently in December of 2019.
Ideas of sailing off into the sunset during retirement faded once the Whiteheads moved to St. Pete and set their sights on establishing a wine storage facility. They spent nine months just searching for the right facility and location, settling on a corner parcel in a quiet industrial complex just north of North Kenwood and a stone’s throw from I-275. They spent another year working with designers, landscapers and builders remodeling the 4,000-square-foot manufacturing plant to specifications that included a 3,800-square-foot temperature and humidity controlled storage room (constant 55 degrees with 65% to 75% humidity). It needed to be flood-proof during a storm event and provide onsite generator backup. A high-tech security camera system with 17 cameras and 24/7 monitoring was also installed.
The Whiteheads hired local wine expert Kory Lynn as general manager, resident wine expert and cellarmaster, and consider him an integral part of the team from handling member requests and deliveries, to monitoring cellar conditions. Lynn, a wine buyer and co-owner of the Cellar Masters wine bar in the Edge District, is also a sommelier, ready to answer questions and provide advice to members.
St. Pete Cellars opened on April 1 this year and word is getting out. During a tour, Rhonda shows visitors a comfortably appointed Member Lounge which allows members to relax with friends or associates and their selected wine, or host a private wine tasting. A spacious modern kitchen just steps away allows catered dinners or other social gatherings. Additional event space can be found both indoors and on an outdoor patio where mature trees offer a shady venue. The massive storage room can store between 140,000 to 150,000 bottles, she estimates.
Roy Whitehead feels St. Pete is ready for this business.
“We’re getting steady inquiries from people who are moving here from the West Coast and need to store wine,” he says. Manager Kory Lynn concurs. The restaurant scene is “getting there,” he adds, and there’s “a huge demand for a place like this in conjunction with the increase in fine dining … it’s a natural evolution.”
“People are moving here from metropolitan areas where there is a strong culture of wine,” says Lynn, “and with the high influx of people there is a demand for more modern options, so this (St. Pete Cellars) was a logical step for people who enjoy fine wine. We are able to enhance a collection that people are already excited about to guarantee they have the best possible outcome. And, as far as wine storage, we are a fairly unique member-driven experience designed to give you a place to actually enjoy your wine without being in a restaurant.”
Rhonda keeps busy marketing the business to real estate professionals, high-end restaurants and wine shops. She has hosted numerous meetings and small events such as private cigar and wine tastings, and envisions hosting more wine events on property.
The Whiteheads are clearly proud of the unique business they have created. Retirement? That’s a far-off notion now.
Says Roy: “We feel we are like a rescue mission. There are a lot of fine wines in St. Petersburg that need to be rescued. You can spend a lot of money on wine, but if you don’t store it properly you’ll be disappointed. We want to facilitate that.”
St. Pete Cellars is located at 1501 22nd St. N. in St. Petersburg FL. For a tour or more information, call (727) 827-2977 or go to stpetecellars.com
