"Give me women, wine and snuff/ Until I cry out 'hold, enough!'" John Keats once wrote, and it seems Sotheby's has taken this cry to heart, at least when it comes to the last two categories. A week after the auction house took in robust earnings from a sale of snuff bottles, it has significantly expanded its already high-spirited commitment to fine vintages by opening a glamorous new Sotheby’s wine shop at its headquarters on New York's Upper East Side.

The unveiling of the retail space, which is paired with an online store, follows wildly successful sales of wine at auction that brought in $35 million for the house in the first half of 2010, according to the Wall Street Journal. This number represents a 76 percent increase from the same period last year, with especially astronomical growth in the Asian market.

Prices for the bottles at the new vinous operation start much lower than they do at auction, with $13.95 holding down the bottom end, though they rise to as much as $40,000. The selection is assembled by members of the Sotheby’s wine team, trusted connoisseurs who, press materials state, "source and taste wine constantly." Amid the opening of the store and the constant wine-tasting, Sotheby's will also hold wine auctions in London and New York this week, followed by four more in Hong Kong next month.

Sotheby’s began hosting wine sales in 1994, when, as a stand-alone auction house, it was required by New York State law to partner with a wine store that had held a liquor license for at least 10 years. That led to the alliance with Aulden Cellars, whose space on the ground floor of 1334 York Avenue, the auction house’s flagship location, was recently bought out for the creation of the new shop, Sotheby’s Wine. Competing auction house Christie’s, meanwhile, still relies on an affiliation with the New York Wine Warehouse to legally put its liquid offerings on the block.

Sotheby’s international head of wine, Serena Sutcliffe, says the new store will carry on the same high standards reserved for screening wines for sale. "Our preference is always for wines of real character and personality," she said in a statement. "In other words, the wines we choose for ourselves. We love hunting for them and, even more, we love drinking them."