It started almost by accident, or perhaps by destiny. I grew up in a region where the table and the cellar are woven into everyday life, where wine is discussed with the same seriousness as art or music. After training in hospitality, I quickly realised that wine was where my true fascination lay. That alchemy between soil, climate, human hands and a vintage – it felt inexhaustible. I worked alongside great houses, travelled extensively through the vineyards of France and beyond, sharpened my palate, and eventually found my way to Monte Carlo. Joining SBM and the Hôtel de Paris felt like arriving somewhere I was always meant to be. These cellars have a soul of their own.

Humility. Wine teaches you that no matter how much you know, there is always more to discover. I have tasted thousands of bottles, walked hundreds of estates, and yet a single glass can still surprise me completely. The other lesson – perhaps equally important – is that wine only truly exists in relation to people. A great bottle shared in the wrong moment, with the wrong company, is somehow diminished. Context is everything. My role is not simply to select wines; it is to orchestrate encounters between a bottle and a person at precisely the right moment in their life.

The cellars of the Hôtel de Paris are one of the great secrets of Monaco and we felt it was time to open that secret to a select few who truly deserve access to it. The motivation was simple: to create a space where passion for wine becomes a way of life, not merely an occasional indulgence. Members gain privileged access to the cellars themselves, to private tastings curated around exceptional verticals, to dinners hosted among the bottles with our culinary teams. But beyond the tangible benefits, what membership really offers is a sense of belonging to something rare. You become part of the living history of this place. That is not something you can simply purchase off a menu.

The cellar must breathe, it cannot be a museum. Yes, we are the guardians of extraordinary historic bottles, some dating back well over a century, and that responsibility weighs on you in the most wonderful way. But a cellar that only looks backwards becomes a relic. My guiding principle is coherence: every wine that enters must have a legitimate conversation with what is already here. That might be a Burgundy grand cru that honours a tradition we have championed for decades, or it might be a natural producer from an emerging appellation whose work speaks to where fine wine is heading. The common thread is always quality, rigour, and a story worth telling.

There are bottles here that genuinely move me each time I walk past them. A complete vertical of Pétrus going back to the 1940s. Certain magnums of Romanée-Conti that have never left these walls. But, if I am honest, my most personal highlight is not a single bottle, it is a moment. Some years ago, I opened a 1961 La Mission Haut-Brion for a guest who had first tasted that same wine with his late father decades earlier. Watching his expression as the memory came back through the glass, that is what these cellars are truly for. No inventory number captures that.

The definition is already shifting, and I welcome it. Climate change is an undeniable reality. Certain appellations are producing wines today that would have been unrecognisable 30 years ago, while new regions in England, Scandinavia, even parts of Asia, are producing bottles of genuine distinction. The collector of the next generation is more curious, less dogmatic. They are not simply buying labels or investment vehicles; they want provenance, authenticity, a human story behind the wine. I think “fine wine” will increasingly mean wine made with exceptional care and integrity, regardless of postcode. The hierarchy is not disappearing, but it is becoming more democratic in the most positive sense.

Monaco has always been a crossroads, and that is reflected in how our guests drink. Two decades ago, the conversation was almost entirely dominated by the great Bordeaux châteaux and the grand crus of Burgundy and rightly so – they remain the pillars of this cellar. But today’s client is genuinely global in their curiosity. We see extraordinary enthusiasm for aged barolo, for the great whites of Alsace, for champagne beyond the familiar grandes maisons, for Spanish wines of real complexity. There is also a growing appetite for the wines of our immediate region: Provence, the Rhône Valley, which perhaps reflects a broader cultural shift towards provenance and a sense of place. Bordeaux and Burgundy have not lost their authority; they have simply gained company.

I would point to the Jura, a region that has been producing wines of extraordinary character for centuries, yet remains criminally underrepresented on the lists of great establishments. The oxidative whites from Savagnin, the singular Vin Jaune, the delicate poulsard reds – these are wines of immense personality and intellectual depth. They demand attention and reward patience, which is precisely the kind of relationship a serious wine lover seeks. Beyond France, I am watching Georgia with great interest – the ancient qvevri tradition there produces wines unlike anything else in the world, and the finest examples have a complexity that deserves to sit alongside the classics. The luxury wine world has always celebrated rarity and these regions offer exactly that.

Patrice Frank is head sommelier and director of the wine cellars at Hôtel de Paris Monte-Carlo, SBM Group; montecarlosbm.com