Trevor and Clara Scott at Le Caveau Vinotheque
The colorful wine bottles at Le Caveau Vinotheque are arranged as meticulously as books on a library shelf, but you don’t need the Dewey Decimal System to find that hostess gift or dinner pairing you’ve been searching for. Step inside the shop at Buckner and Peavy, and owners Trevor and Clara Scott will guide you to the perfect bottle.
Trevor and Clara purchased Le Caveau in 2023 from founder Thierry Plumettaz, a certified wine specialist and former sommelier at the Mansion at Turtle Creek. While shopping for wine one day, Trevor noticed a primitive sign crafted from computer paper taped inside Le Caveau’s front window: Moving to Napa, Business for Sale.
Trevor turned the idea over in his head for a few days — he didn’t even mention it to Clara at first — but the possibility of owning a wine shop didn’t exactly come out of left field. The Scotts have loved exploring and enjoying food and wine since they married in 2019 and began traveling the world. With each fabulous destination and each tasty sip, they imagined becoming entrepreneurs.
“We’re not experts, we just love wine,” says Trevor. “We love sharing wine and discovering wine. We found this place as customers, and we are learning every day. We loved having a place like this in our neighborhood, and we couldn’t stand the thought of it going away.”
Plumettaz hails from France and Switzerland, and his focus for the shop was offering the finest wines from his homeland. Trevor and Clara are branching out to offer new options.
“People come in every day and ask if we offer American wines,” says Trevor. “We do. We carry wine from all over the world.”
The Scotts know some folks are intimidated by the vast array of wines and their origin stories. They’re ready to help.
“People think that they have to have some level of knowledge to enjoy wine,” says Trevor. “I’m trying to demystify that and bring people in. Knowledge is great and can make the experience better by some degree, but it’s not a requirement by any means. You can still enjoy wine and love wine without knowing much about wine. You just have to taste it, share it, have food with it and explore it. That’s what we love about it. That’s why we got into this, and that’s what we are here to do is to give people that opportunity.”
The couple also uses social media to attract a younger audience to Le Caveau and to document their travels to vineyards all over the world.
“People who are winemakers or distributors or importers come in here and share their wines and talk about wine,” says Trevor. “That’s really the only way you can learn. At the end of the day, you can read books and search on the internet and visit all the best wineries, but the best way to learn is to drink wine.”
Clara, who kept her day job in international tax at KPMG, says her favorite owner’s perk is tasting new wines and offering her objective point of view before they go all in with a big purchase.
“It’s fun having a place like this in the neighborhood where we can host events,” she says. “We enjoy sharing new wines and meeting new people. We definitely have our beloved regulars, but there’s someone new stopping in every day. It’s nice to build those relationships, and we’ve created new friendships from people we’ve gotten to know at the shop.”
Le Caveau has been tucked away inside the White Rock Shopping Center for almost 10 years now, but Trevor says two things recently boosted visibility and sales — last year’s opening of Burger Schmurger by Dave Culwell and the Scotts’s installation of a neon sign reading “wine shop.” The sign was no coincidence.
“People were lined up around the block at Burger Schmurger,” laughs Trevor, “and we just wanted to make it 100% clear to that audience that this is a wine shop. And that was some of the best money we’ve spent on this business.”
Le Caveau is at 718 N. Buckner Blvd. #332.
