You may have heard about the heat wave we recently experienced here in northern California, and hot weather like this alters the way we eat and drink at home. Earlier this week, for example, Barbara assembled one of my favorite warm-weather meals – Prosciutto and melon — and we enjoyed it with a slightly chilled bottle of Neyers 2024 Pinot Noir ‘Placida Vineyard’.

The weather is cold in Chablis – the coldest region in France where Chardonnay is grown – and the fields of vines seem almost hostile. Who would dare make wine from a region this uncomfortable for man? Make wine they do, though, some of the greatest in the world.

Barbara and I had lived in Korea for a year, so exotic Asian cuisine was not new to us, and our regular trips to Paris merely confirmed our attraction to the food. One of our favorite Michelin-starred Parisian restaurants proudly boasted a wine list that consisted almost entirely of the wines of Pomerol.

Barbara and I arrived in San Francisco in May 1970, two years after what was then known as the summer of love. We were returning to the states from Korea, after I had spent 13 months as a guided missile officer assigned to a unit near the Demilitarized Zone.