The other threads about wine people you’d like to have dinner with — or not — got me thinking about the lunches and dinners I’ve had with people in the trade over the years that stand out in my mind. Many of the encounters I owe to my friend Claude Kolm.
In no particular order:
Steve Edmunds (Edmunds St. John) - dinner once at Claude’s in San Francisco and at two dinners in NYC sponsored by Chambers Street. Always thoughtful, soft-spoken and modest. His wry account of being locked out of the Wylie vineyard due to some EST connection sticks in my memory, along with his consternation when the old mourvedre vines on Mt. Veeder he tapped in the 80s were grafted to merlot. Still waiting for him to play his banjo at dinner.
Enrico Dellapiano (Rizzi, Barbaresco) - dinner twice at my apartment. Good company and extremely conscientious. Like so many great young winemakers, it’s clear he’s always learning and trying to understand his mistakes as well as his successes.
Luis Pato and Filipa Pato (Luis Pato, Bairrada, Portugal) - separate dinners at my apartment after a visit to the winery. When God doled out the charm, both father and daughter were blessed with more than their share. Lovely people and I’m a big fan of the wines.
Aubert de Villaine (DRC) - a makeshift lunch on a visit with Claude Kolm in 1998, with a baquette from our car and a bit of ham and cheese from the domaine’s refrigerator. As I recall, it was a '68 Echezeaux that was pulled out. I was struck by de Villaine’s modesty, and the dowdiness of the offices. (The opposite of an LVMH-owned winery.) I was left feeling that he seems himself as a trustee.
Michel Delon (Leoville Las Cases) - lunch at Ch. Lagrange, where Delon was advising, on a visit with Claude Kolm in the 90s. No wonder they called him The Lion. Imposing, lording over the Lagrange people, ignoring the representative of the Japanese owners, with all the haughtiness you’d expect of a Frenchman of his status and vintage (sic).
Louis de Vallouit of Domaine de Vallouit (later purchased by Guigal) - dinner in a restaurant near Tain circa 1988. Lovely company, wonderful meal and de Vallouit, a former Monte Carlo rally driver, insisted in driving me to the restaurant in his Porshe at very high speed.
Wells Guthrie (Copain) - at an offline in NYC. Again, his modesty and thoughtfulness are what struck me. The impression was reinforced on a visit to the winery four years or so ago, where he led us from barrel to barrel. When I told him I’d liked a 2000 syrah of his I’d had recently, he looked shocked and said he had no idea of what he was doing then.
Kermit Lynch - restaurant in Beaune with Claude Kolm in 1998. Memorable for the unscheduled intrusion of a drunk Pierre Rovani, who came over and said something sarcastic to Kermit. And for Kermit’s response to me when I said I thought I understood Maume’s wines, which we’d tasted that day. “You think you understand those wines?” he said in an incredulous tone.
Ted Lemon (now of Littorai) - lunch with the owners of Domaine Woltner, where he then worked, with Claude Kolm, in the early 90s. Interesting, thoughtful – and in those days one of the few California winemakers who had spent time in France.
Paul Draper (Ridge) - lunch at the winery and with a tasting group in San Francisco. Lively, engaging, passionate.
Unnamed proprietor of a major Barolo producer - dinner with friends in Bra in the early 2000s. The owner’s somewhat tipsy and plainly unhappy wife, who spoke excellent English, kept draping herself over me in an awkward way at dinner. My friends told me later that she did that to all other single men. Her husband didn’t seem to notice or care.