What is taste? Is it individual or imposed on us from the outside? Why are so many of us so intimidated when presented with the wine list at a restaurant? In The Accidental Connoisseur , journalist Lawrence Osborne takes off on a personal voyage through a little-known world in pursuit of some answers. Weaving together a fantastic cast of eccentrics and obsessives, industry magnates and small farmers, the author explores the way technological change, opinionated critics, consumer trends, wheelers and dealers, trade wars, and mass market tastes have made the elixir we drink today entirely different from the wine drunk by our grandparents. In his search for wine that is a true expression of the place that produced it, Osborne takes the reader from the high-tech present to the primitive past. From a lavish lunch with wine tsar Robert Mondavi to the cellars of Marquis Piero Antinori in Florence, from the tasting rooms of Chateau Lafite to the humble vineyards of northern Lazio, Osborne winds his way through Renaissance palaces, $27 million wineries, tin shacks and garages, opulent restaurants, world-famous chais and vineyards, renowned villages and obscure landscapes, as well as the great cities which are the temples of wine consumption: New York, San Francisco, Paris, Florence, and Rome. On the way, we will be shown the vast tapestry of this much-desired, little-understood drink: who produces it and why, who consumes it, who critiques it? Enchanting, delightful, entertaining, and, above all, down to earth, this is a wine book like no other. “Funny, provocative, and vastly entertaining.” ― Gerald Asher “A humorous punch in the nose to wine snobs who think money buys good taste.” ― Kermit Lynch “Lawrence Osborne's The Accidental Connoisseur is shrewd, apt, acerbic and often quite crazy. We are carried along equally by the honed criticism and the fine writing.” ― Jim Harrison Lawrence Osborne  has written for The New York Times Magazine , The New Yorker , and other publications, and is the author of books including The Naked Tourist . Born in England, he lives in New York. The Accidental Connoisseur An Irreverent Journey Through the Wine World By Lawrence Osborne North Point Press Copyright © 2004 Lawrence Osborne All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-86547-712-4 Contents Introduction: A Matter of Taste, A Road to Sassoferrato, Lunch with Robert Mondavi, The Vinelife, Oh Brave New Wine!, The Spirit of Place, An Idea of France, An Afternoon in Bordeaux, The Colossi of Gaussac, Of Corks and Screws, Mondo Antinori, Walking with Dionysus, Acknowledgments, CHAPTER 1 A Road to Sassoferrato * * * All of life is a dispute over taste and tasting. — Nietzsche The mansion of Antonio Terni sits among his family's craggy mulberry trees a few miles inland from the resort of Sirolo. A narrow track sweeps up through rows of Montepulciano vines, past the barns of the fattoria and smoothed cypresses to the old silkworm farm shrouded by walls and trees that give the house the atmosphere of a minister's villa or a high-class retreat for recovering alcoholics. Seas of vines prevent any interference from the outside world and make Le Terrazze seem farther from the Adriatic than it actually is. But it was raining and a storm battered Ancona, obscuring the weird sugarloaf mountain which gives Terni's wine its ancient Greek name: Conero. As I rang the bell a huge German shepherd appeared on the far side of the electronically controlled gates. It watched me fumble with the buzzer and for a moment I wondered if I was really at the right house after all. Terni's famous wine estate is so locally renowned that all one has to do is follow the Le Terrazze signs from the road. Even in Sirolo there are signs for Le Terrazze everywhere, for it is perhaps the most noted domain in the Marches, a jewel in the crown of modern Italian wines whose bottles regularly score well in the Italian comestibles magazine Gambero Rosso. As the yellow eyes of Terni's shepherd glared through the gate, his master's voice came over the speaker: Entra! The gates began to open. A loping, gangling figure suddenly appeared in worn corduroys and genteel elbow patches, dragging the beast away to a high-security cage on the other side of the gravel courtyard and then offering an aristocratic hand by way of assurance. He wore a gaudy Bob Dylan T-shirt under his corduroy blazer — Terni is rather known for his wild pop-culture enthusiasms. "Lost?" he said. "A little." He shook a little water from his hair and shivered. "Let me lock up the Baskerville hound here and we'll drink inside." Terni has a subtle, carefully cloaked stutter. The palatial house has been owned by the Ternis since 1884. They are a Jewish family and had been forced to leave the property in 1938. They had gone to make wine in Argentina during the war and only returned after Mussolini had been safely meat-hooked. Born on the Argentine pampas, Antonio had i