John Baker - Stalins Wine Cellar

The adventure of a lifetime to buy Stalins secret multimillion-dollar wine cellar located in Georgia. This is the Raiders of the Lost Ark of wine.

In the late 1990s, John Baker was known as a purveyor of quality rare and old wines. Always entrepreneurial and up for adventure, he was the perfect person for an occasional business partner to approach with a mysterious wine list that was foreign to anything John, or his second-in-command, Kevin, had ever come across.

John and Kevin embarked on an audacious, colourful and potentially dangerous journey to Georgia to discover if the wines actually existed; if the bottles were authentic and had indeed been owned by Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia, and then Stalin; and whether the entire collection could be bought and transported to a major auction house for sale.

Stalins Wine Cellar is a wild, sometimes rough ride in the glamorous world of high-end wine. From Double Bay, Sydney to Tbilisi, Georgia, via the streets of London and Paris, to the vineyards of Bordeaux and iconic Chteau dYquem, a multimillion-dollar cellar and a breathtaking collection of wine are the elusive treasure.

Airport
Tbilisi, Georgia
July, 1999

The airport looked like pretty much every other small city airport in any part of the world. Not particularly modern, not particularly ancient. Just bland.

Kevin Hopko and I walked through the doors and saw two men, one in a T-shirt and black leather jacket, unshaven, with bleary eyes. The other one in a business shirt, no tie, and a blazer. Looking sharper and more alert. He had to be Giorgi Aramhishvili, mid-thirties perhaps, so maybe a decade younger than me. Not as old as Id imagined. He had a mop of black hair that looked as though it didnt like being tamed, especially at 1.30 am in a too brightly lit airport arrivals lounge. Giorgi was of average height and had a bit of a girth on him that spoke of a love of good food and wine. He was smiling broadly as he walked towards us, holding out his hand and saying, Mr John Baker! To meet you is such a pleasure at last.

His accent thick but understandable.

Hello, George, I said. Thank you for meeting us at this time of the night.

Do you joke? he laughed. You are our most honoured guests.

The other guy, in the jacket, was introduced as Nino and I guess he didnt speak much English because he only nodded at us and sort of grunted. He handed me a business card:

I took in the names of his three companies: Agency firm Goodwill, Back Wind Ltd, and Orbi Ltd.

I said, Chief consultant in special issues! Its nice to meet you, Nino.

He had coarse dark hair that might have been wavy if it werent cut short in a military style: a hairstyle that matched the hard, almost brutal, features of his face. He grunted again and shook hands rather formally.

As Nino also gave a card to Kevin, and shook hands, I watched Kevins face, already a polite mask as calculations and appraisals took place behind those eyes of his that see everything, never missing a trick.

I smiled, and said to George, We should get our bags.

John, he said, You do not need to worry about that. I will take care of customs. Come, come.

We were led out of the arrivals hall through a side door and from there up a flight of stairs to a small room that had a sign saying VIP Welcome Area. There were two other men inside, in suits, smiling professionally, and we were introduced. One was from the Georgian Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and the other was Mr Revaz, who George told us was a very senior executive from the winery. Neither appeared to speak English, so there was a lot of nodding and smiling as Nino poured us all a glass of what turned out to be a sweet sparkling wine and handed around a large plate of chocolates. Just what you need after flying from Sydney to London, then another seven hours back east, arriving in the middle of the night and jetlagged half to oblivion.

It was almost 2 am. Toasts were made to our arrival, and to our success, and to the business we would do together, and to me, and to Kevin, and to Australia, and to wine.

Finally, George said again that he would take care of customs, and I wondered what that meant given we only had three suitcases of regular checked-in luggage with nothing to declare. It crossed my mind that I didnt know the rules in this place. I was a long way from home.

As George shook hands with me one more time, our gaze met and we regarded one another for a moment, before he hustled out of the room to leave us with three men who spoke no English and looked like they had better places to be, such as bed. I remember wondering to myself whether this unlikely venture was actually going to work, or if I was going to regret ever setting foot on Georgian soil.

Or maybe something in between.

Kevins face remained a polite mask. I knew that he wouldnt give me any sign of his opinion until we were alone, and I respected that.

Instead, Nino poured another glass of the sweet wine and offered it to me. In my experience, sometimes the only thing to do in life is embark on an adventure and see where it ends up, and this was very definitely one of those times. I took the glass from Nino, raised it in his direction and drank.

Whichever way this went, it was not going to be boring, I thought. And on that front, looking back now, I was completely correct.

But I should tell you how we got here in the first place. It started months before, on the other side of the world.

Sydney, Australia
September, 1998

I graduated from university with a degree in economics but no idea of what I wanted to do or where I belonged and so I began exploring. It meant that I have had quite a varied career, looking for opportunities in everything from running hotels and music venues to wine retail and wine importing businesses to olive oil production. Mostly, heading into the events of this book, I had spent my recent career developing up-market wine stores in the wealthier areas of Sydney, transforming your basic takeaway wine and beer outlet into a more sophisticated and richer experience. Think of a really inviting bookshop, like the ones in the Darlinghurst part of Oxford Street, if youre from Sydney, but really, any bookshop with books laid out for you to browse, with knowledgeable, friendly staff who can point you to authors you might like, even offer a comfortable armchair for you to sample a book before you buy. I wanted to create that same intimate, warm vibe for buying good wines.

These days, such boutique wine retailers are standard but, back then, they were not so common and I had done well out of the concept, starting with The Newport Bottler on Sydneys Northern Beaches in the 1980s, where I refined the concept.