Privacy

The principle before the policy

Grand Couvert Ltd. is a private house. Almost everything we know about a member was told to us in confidence over a table, and it is held that way. Discretion is not a clause here; it is the reason members write to us at all.

This notice explains, in ordinary language, what the house records, why it records it, and what you may ask us to do with it. It applies to members, to those requesting an introduction, and to anyone who writes to table@grandcouvert.com.

What the house records

We keep only what is needed to set your table well, and we keep it for as long as the work continues.

• —Your name, correspondence address and telephone, and those of the household where you have asked us to hold them
• —The name of the member or house that introduced you
• —Preferences at table: how you like to be seated, what you do not eat, observances, abstentions and allergies
• —A record of evenings set, rooms taken and menus printed
• —Cellar records: bottles bought on your behalf, provenance, storage location and condition
• —Correspondence with the house, kept so that your officer need not ask you the same thing twice
• —Billing particulars for dues and for purchases made on your account

Why we hold it

To perform the service you have engaged us for, to meet our obligations to you under the terms of membership, and to satisfy the accounting and anti-money-laundering duties that fall on a company holding money and wine on behalf of others.

Where a preference is a matter of health — an allergy, an intolerance, an observance — we hold it because you asked us to, and we pass it to a kitchen only so far as is needed to keep you safe at their table.

Who else sees it

As little as possible, and never a member's name where a first name will do.

Restaurants, chefs, private-room managers and domaines receive only what an evening requires: the number at table, the hour, the preferences that matter to the kitchen, and a name to greet at the door. We do not tell a house who else is dining, what a member spends, or why they are celebrating unless you have asked us to.

Our accountants, auditors, bonded cellar operators, insurers and payment processors act for us under contract and may see only the records their work requires. We do not sell, rent, licence or trade member information, and we take no payment from any house, grower or maker in exchange for it.

Where it is held

The house ledger is held on servers within the European Union, with a mirrored copy in the United States for New York. Transfers between the two are made under the standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission and the UK addendum thereto.

Cellar inventories are held with the bonded warehouses in Beaune and New Jersey that store the bottles, under confidentiality terms no less strict than our own.

How long it is kept

Membership records are kept for the life of the membership and for seven years afterwards, which is the period our auditors and the tax authorities require of us.

Cellar records are kept for as long as the bottles are in store and for seven years after the last of them leaves, because provenance is worth more than privacy once a bottle is sold on.

A request for an introduction that does not proceed is destroyed within twelve months, unless you have asked us to keep it on file against a future opening on the roll.

Your rights

You may ask us for a copy of everything the house holds about you, ask us to correct what is wrong, ask us to delete what we are not obliged to keep, ask us to restrict how we use it, or object to a particular use altogether. You may also ask for your record in a portable form.

Write to table@grandcouvert.com and mark the letter for the attention of the house's data officer. We will answer within one month, and we will not charge you for the asking. If our answer does not satisfy you, you may complain to the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés in France or to the Information Commissioner's Office in the United Kingdom.

Children

Membership is held by households, and a household includes children. We record a child's name and any allergy only so that a kitchen may cook for them safely. We hold nothing else about a minor, and we do not market to them.

Changes to this notice

If we change what we do with member information in any way that matters, members will be written to directly before the change takes effect. Silent revisions are not the house's manner.