So much of any endeavour is about the people who are central to making it happen.    And this adventure in particular will be about participating in the vision that I have developed around a few vines in the south of France.  Now some people just need to hear wine and south of France to get hooked but others are more discriminating so here’s a bit about me and my philosophy.

I grew up learning independence from a visionary father who dreamed big and a brilliant mother who worked very hard.  I was the ninth of ten children and the seventh son of my father, also a seventh son.  I loved school, particularly math and history and went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a Master’s Degree in Business.  I worked for multinationals like Procter & Gamble and for eighteen years with GE, traveling extensively and working in many other cultures around the world.

From the time I was a child my mom instilled in us a unique sense of history.  As a teacher of history she made it come alive for her students by bringing it into the classroom and taking them out of the classroom to reenact history for themselves.  I can remember scaled log cabins with authentic furniture, and Indian long houses being constructed inside her classroom and I’ll never forget the movies made on our farm with her students, some bits of cloth and our horses as the Battle of Queenston Heights raged around us or the south fell at the Battle of Gettysburg.  She made history real for me and now I can do it for so many more.

Ever since I was young my father made wine at home.  It wasn’t great wine but it was the sense of art that he brought to the task that made me love it so much, particularly the gusto with which he would raise the first toast of his latest effort.  “Sit ye doon” followed by the sound of pouring wine and “Here’s to ye!” were very common things to hear when visitors stopped by the house.  Since that time many of my siblings have made wine and now I have embarked on a voyage of homage to that sense of art that Dad carried inside of him and shared with us.

I first met Jean de Montlaur twenty years ago, while we were developing a joint venture between GE and his company, Thompson of france, and we became instant friends.  Since that time we have shared many experiences together over wine and food, family and friends.  Jean inherited the vineyard from his father in the mid 90’s and we have taken our time to patch together a program that will provide a way for his family’s heritage to be preserved and amplified …through the love of wine, the love of history and in the crucible of good friendship.

At 49 years of age I am giving this dream everything I have in the hope that others will see some of their dreams come true through it, so that they can be a part of something so staggeringly beautiful that it at times rends the heart.  Not everyone can or will see it as I do, but for those that do I can promise experiences like none other in this world, and memories that will grow richer with the passing of time.