Sour Grapes Page #4

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that his family owned

the Heineken distributorship

for all of China.

Fabulously wealthy,

and he was on a million-dollar-a-month

allowance for his wine,

and when I asked Rudy about this stuff

he said, "I don't talk about my family",

and he wouldn't tell me anything.

I sort of assumed he was a rich kid

looking for something to do.

The auction houses were giddy.

No one had ever spent

that much money that fast.

It was ruining the quiet little club

that the old guys had.

I've been collecting for 38 years I guess.

So, I've got, you know, lots of DRC labels

and they're all categorised by particular

domains or groups of domains.

There's Ponsots in here.

I've got mostly from the '80s.

That's some major wine, yeah, that's his,

one of his best.

Sometimes you only get to taste them

once in your life

if you get to taste them at all,

so it's kind of fun.

I was introduced to Rudy by John Kapon

at an Acker auction event

over in Beverly Hills.

I want to drink Burgundies.

That's me, of course, you know.

He said, "Well, you're a Burgundy

collector, what Burgundies do you like?"

And I said, "Well, my favourites

are probably Roumier, Rousseau

"and DRC,- Romane-Conti."

You got that right, my friend,

you got that right.

Right after that he said,

"You should buy wines with me",

he said, "I buy cellars and collections

in Europe all the time."

And then I remember Rudy asked me,

"What's the oldest Roumier

you've ever had?"

And I said it was a 1969.

And I told him I'd been lucky enough

to find a couple at auction,

that they're real hard to find.

And then Rudy said,

"Well, you know, in the last year I've had

"1945, 1949, 1955

"and 1962 Roumier Bonnes-Mares."

He picked the greatest red Burgundy

vintages from that era.

I was just flabbergasted.

I'd been looking for them for 25 years.

Burgundy is unique on the planet.

The band of slopes, we say, which is

70 kilometres long and 1 kilometre wide,

and composed

by 1,250 different appellations.

There are a lot of grapes this year

...but we won't see how it turns out

until the harvest.

Heaven, they say, is above us...

...but I believe that in Burgundy

it is down below.

Down below in the cellar

and in the roots of the vines.

We are just 11 metres

below the ground level here

and we are really with two feet

in the history of Burgundy.

See here are tiny roots, from vines,

which are probably here since 200 years.

The vine is sucking, so to say, the rock.

Going up on the hill on

the other side of the street,

the vines will not find

the same mineral elements

and they will never find the same taste

and aromas.

The most important for me

is what nature gives.

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