Segue happened like this. I was interviewing a guy named Greg La Follette, one of the best Pinot Noir winemakers in our nation, if not our galaxy. While driving through winding back-country roads he pulled both hands off the steering wheel of his 300,000-mile Volvo station wagon so he could sketch the flow of phenols through a Pinot wine grape.

With great passion as we veered and swerved, Greg swore to me, "Nothing caresses your mouth. Steve, like Pinot Noir." He said it with such conviction it sounded like a religious vow. That was all I needed. I'd been possessed by  the notion for some time of making my own commercial Pinot Noir--the ultimate sensuous wine encounter, to me, when done exactly right--but I knew I needed to be in close proximity to a microbiologist with the soul of a poet. Pinot Noir is the world's most finicky, duplicitous grape. Passion matters; but nothing matters quite so much as knowing how to neutralize stinky yeast cells when the grape

When Greg signed on as my designated troubleshooter, I took the plunge. During harvest I became a cellar rat-- a winery grunt who mucks out fermentation tanks, gases barrels and swabs floors--and a vineyard manager. For months I went to bed picking moist grape skins out of my ears and nostrils. I tasted over 300 Pinots on their way to becoming wine. I knew what I wanted in the end product; now I was finding out how to get there. It was sloppy, exhausting work. It was the best of all fun.

Months later I sipped and spat from stacks of French oak barrels. Little did I know, going in, that every barrel cooper from Hermitage to Francoise Freres imparts an entirely different character to the wine. Finally I got the marriage of dark fruit, bright flavors and lushness I was looking for. I felt elated.