Age has its pitfalls — but also its privileges: old enough to have entered the wine business in the early 1970’s, I was present at the birth of the California renaissance — exploring cellars in a still-sleepy Napa Valley, on the brink of its meteoric rise to international renown.
Much has changed in the half-century since: I soon became a wine columnist, not a buyer, and — full disclosure — Burgundy now graces my table more frequently than California Cabernet.
But one constant holds firm: my love for wine will forever be colored by those serendipitous romantic beginnings — an era when (with apologies to Bob Dylan) “there was music in the cafés at night, and revolution in the air.”
Much has changed in the half-century since: I soon became a wine columnist, not a buyer, and — full disclosure — Burgundy now graces my table more frequently than California Cabernet.
But one constant holds firm: my love for wine will forever be colored by those serendipitous romantic beginnings — an era when (with apologies to Bob Dylan) “there was music in the cafés at night, and revolution in the air.”