What Are You Drinking?

“Gerard Jaboulet died not long ago, and it reminded me of the first time I visited him, on one of our first trips to France in 1993. We were in the Rho^ne Valley and went to a big long tasting at his winery. He opened a lot of wines from different vintages, then he poured one from a decanter. It was still black and inky, but it was obviously showing a little age. He defied us to tell him what it was. Well, it turned out to be a 1978 Hermitage from the La Chapelle vineyard. I had just turned 21, and we had just started planting our vineyards. It really made an impression on me: Wine from one generation and one country to the next. I’ve never forgotten that.”