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Elton Potts \u201986<\/b><\/p>\n
Vine Vault<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> By\u00a0Sara Ann Hutto ’17<\/b> When Potts retired from the corporate world, he pursued his passion, collecting fine wine \u2014 from there, a new business was born<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div> Elton Potts will never forget the first time he bought a bottle of fine wine, a current vintage of Silver Oak. Like many kids, Cullen Harper played a lot of sports growing up: baseball, football, basketball. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":22840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21,8],"tags":[479,1077,1110,1185,3290,3291],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-22848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumniprofiles","category-my-clemson","tag-business","tag-elton-potts","tag-entrepreneur","tag-fall-2020-alumni-profiles","tag-wine","tag-wine-collecting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/10\/Elton-Potts.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22848"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=22848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n\u201cI sweated over it,\u201d he says. \u201cI was thinking, \u2018I can\u2019t believe I just spent $100 on a bottle of wine!\u2019\u201d
\nBut to Potts, the bottle\u2019s value was priceless. He bought it in honor of one of his first vintages, which he was gifted by a wine collector: a 1988 Silver Oak cabernet sauvignon, lush with a subtle earthiness and soft finish.
\n\u201cHe gave me a gift that would have been very difficult for me to purchase on my own just because they\u2019re not readily available,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was the thoughtfulness of the gift and the impact that it had that helped me say, \u2018You know what, I\u2019m going to start collecting wine, not only so I can enjoy it down the road but also so I can give that joy to others.\u201d
\nNow, Potts is helping others collect wine through his wine storage and transportation business, Vine Vault. The idea for Vine Vault actually came to him during his years in the corporate sector, especially during his time with Recall, a documents and information storage company.
\nAs the COO of Recall, Potts spent a lot of time traveling, which meant he also got to visit many wine-growing regions of the world. A couple of favorites include the Barossa Valley in Australia and Napa, California. At each destination, Potts\u2019 passion for collecting grew but so did his frustrations with the process.
\n\u201cGetting the wines home from the winery was fraught with risk,\u201d he says. Not only is the bottle fragile, but it is also susceptible to what is known as \u201ccooking,\u201d when the wine gets too hot. If this happens, Potts explains, the chemical properties change, and \u201cit is no longer fine wine.\u201d
\nPotts knew he couldn\u2019t be the only one who felt this way about collecting. So, when he retired from Recall in 2013, it wasn\u2019t long before he started working on Vine Vault, applying much of his expertise in the storage business.
\n\u201cMy wife jokes that I retired for just an afternoon,\u201d he laughs. \u201cIt was at least a week.\u201d
\nVine Vault offers clients a variety of services, which include delivering wine in a temperature-
\ncontrolled truck from the winery to your home and storing wine in specialized facilities. \u201cWe will literally do everything for people except drink the bottle,\u201d Potts says.
\nAfter years in the wine industry, Potts has built an impressive collection, but he also understands the importance of enjoying it. A bottle of wine shouldn\u2019t lay on the rack for years after its prime \u2014 a lesson for life: \u201cWine is a living thing. If you let it go beyond its prime, it\u2019s not going to be as good as it would have been, which means don\u2019t keep waiting for a special occasion. Create special occasions.\u201d
\nSpeaking of special occasions, when asked if he still has that life-changing gift, the 1988 bottle of Silver Oak, Potts laughs:
\n\u201cOh no, we drank it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>