table talk / By Joseph Byrd

A Glass in the Barn

Remember, again, that “tours” of vineyards were unknown. Individuals willing to negotiate back roads might get to a winery, but the wineries themselves were not set up for customers. There were no “tasting rooms.” They often didn’t even have a retail license to sell bottles.

Arriving at a pleasant whitewashed house with a veranda, we were greeted by a pleasant lady, the bookkeeper. I explained that we’d brought a picnic lunch, and offered to share it. No, she said, I must be going, but let me call Paul, and see if he’d like to have lunch with you. It turned out he would. He arrived in a jeep, bearing two bottles of wine, which we shared.

This was how I met Paul Draper, the legendary oenologist who perfected single-vineyard winemaking. After lunch, he directed us to follow him up the hill to the great barn, where we tasted the first of what would be a series of award-winning Cabernet Sauvignons. They (and Heitz) would figure significantly in the famous wine competition I mentioned above. But that’s another story.

Those days are gone. After 1976, winemaking became fashionable. Lavish chateaus were built, with retail facilities and tasting rooms. Tourism followed, and the cheap high from trundling between tasting rooms became a cliché. Naturally, the economics of hundreds of free samples made it impossible to taste really special wines.

It was an innocent time, when a young couple could visit the great wineries, and come away with a magical experience. But there are such experiences today, waiting to be discovered. Look for them, and act. Seize them. Who knows when they will disappear?

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