About Grandcru Grapes
I am Jannes Alink. I built Grandcru Grapes on one principle: every link in the chain — sourcing, inspection, matching, dispatch — stays in one pair of hands. Mine. Every day I navigate the market for fine wine: merchants, auctions, private cellars, across borders. Most of what I see does not pass. What does, I buy, I check, and I send on.
Why I started
I had the allocations. To be offered the Sassicaia I wanted, I had to take the Guidalberto and the Le Difese as well — every year, good vintage or not. Miss a year and you are out. A client of mine had the same arrangement with Keller.
It is a system built for a market that no longer exists, and it asks you to buy six bottles you did not want in order to be allowed one you did. So I stepped away from it.
Now I buy Sassicaia only in the vintages worth having, and I buy one bottle, or three, as I see fit. One bottle. One vintage. No conditions attached. It is worth asking why that still needs saying.
One Pair of Hands
Everything runs through one pair of hands — mine. I navigate the market, I select on domain, vintage and condition, I price against the real market, I take delivery, I inspect, I photograph, and I match to the client whose cellar it fits. No link is handed off. That is what it means to be an independent fine wine merchant — not a constraint, but the point.
Every bottle comes to me before it goes to you. I check the capsule, the fill, the label — what shows a problem, I leave. It is a smaller risk than buying blind. It is not a guarantee, and I do not write it as one.
The WhatsApp Group
This is where most people buy fine wine from me — a few bottles at a time, never a catalogue. If it fits your cellar, you let me know. That is how most bottles are placed.
I share what I find and what I open on Instagram.