My initial experience with French red wine as well as food began with a Julia Child cookbook. I made tournedos Rossini and filet of beef with Bearnaise sauce. Such delicious recipes required fantastic Bordeaux wine, and also the owner of a regional red wine shop in West Hartford, Connecticut, gave it. That very same store owner educated me a great deal about Bordeaux as well as shared remarkable bottles, consisting of some from the great 1961 vintage. When I was ready to visit the area, he sent what need to have been an extremely convincing letter on my part to Maison Sichel. Upon my arrival, the négociant sent an employee and vehicle to take me on a three-day trip to one of the most well-known wineries worldwide. The chateaus– Lafite Rothschild, Margaux and d’Yquem– were, of course, stunning, yet I could not wait on the scenic tours to be over. All I wished to do was come down into the storages. In the caves where the barrels of wine were aging, my feeling of scent was so enhanced that the various other senses faded into the history till the winemaker would dip into a barrel. We would taste its contents and also discuss what the red wine could be like in five years, in 100. To this day, my memory of the pungent scent of fermenting grapes is razor sharp. In the little community of Margaux, my guide and also I visited a tiny dining establishment. The food was good however certainly not haute cuisine; the red wine list resembled no other in the world. Every white wine of the 20 on the listing was from the appellation of Margaux. It resembled a poem, with each verse ending in the word Margaux. Throughout the course of dinner, we consumed 3 bottles. None was close to Château Margaux, yet all of them had the particular deep red fruitiness and also well balanced taste of that I involved identify as Margaux. Regrettably, much of the white wines I tasted on that journey, from the very early 1970s, were slim and also not long-lived. Of course, I really did not have a clue at the time. It’s possible that I would certainly have appreciated that trip a lot more had I gone later, with more knowledge concerning white wine. Yet in any case, my experience left such an impact on me that whenever I taste a red wine from Bordeaux, I instantly look for mirrors of flavors it had when it remained in the barrel. Then, I am catapulted back in time to those cool white wine caves, with all of the fermenting fragrances and also memories. Released on July 25, 2021