(Forbes) - Many established restaurant professionals — with or without those key wine-credential letter combinations after their names — are moving into the wine club arena. Their goal is to provide a list of personally selected wines not available to the general public. Some, like San Francisco’s legendary sommelier Raj Parr, who worked at Michael Mina for years, are even making their own wines in local vineyards in Oregon and the Central Coast of California.

All of the new sommelier-led clubs share a desire to allow their members to experiment with wines that they might not find in stores. The clubs also fulfill the desire of some of those savvy consumers to gain access to high-end-wine culture without requiring the sommeliers to actually be on their feet for a 12-hour shift in a restaurant.