Drinking a great wine evokes emotion for a great wine is a work of art.  The experience is the same as when consuming a culinary feast, hearing a musical masterpiece, viewing the paintings and sculptures of great artists, admiring architectural monuments, seeing a great film in the cinema.  The experience touches our soul.

Wine is a cultural product, combining traditions and customs in a process unique to a particular region of the world.  In some places, where large quantities of wine are produced to be consumed by the gallons, wine is thought of in terms of it being an assembly line business like industries that make other products for mass consumption.  In other places, where master wine makers have toiled in the same way for centuries, wine making is considered an art form.  Drinking a great wine is like travelling to the source, feeling the climate in the region of the vineyard, standing on the soil where rows of vines stretch across the land, becoming acquainted with the women and men who lovingly care for the land and grapes and who ultimately bring the great wine to the bottle that sits before you, proudly representing the region where the wine was produced.

A winemaker must first understand the land and that in itself can be a complex process for not only does the soil content vary from one region to another, it may vary within a vineyard.  When the winemaker knows the earth in which their grapes grow, then there is the arduous task of producing the best results from the ground.  The winemaker never compromises their convictions as they adhere to a long traditional, as well as innovative, process that will create the ultimate objective of developing a wine of rich taste, with a distinct personality reflective of the patience and perfection imbued in the winemaker.  A great wine is made by a great winemaker and a great wine maker is a great artist. 

Classic wines are to the palate what Johannes Wolfgang Mozart, Placido Domingo, Ismael Lo, Ray Charles and The Rolling Stones are to music, what Michelangelo Caravaggio, Pablo Picasso, and Andy Warhol are to painting.  A great wine, like great art, is sui generis, one of a kind.  A great wine can be compared with others, but in the final analysis every great wine defines itself.

Wine is dependant upon four critically important factors; elements that define the wine, parameters of production that will determine the quality of the product.

• The Land:  Without a doubt this is the most important factor.  The first artist is the terroir or land itself. At least 60% of the final result is dependent upon this factor.  The land is to wine what melody is to music, what the quality of ingredients are to cooking, what the bloodline is to a thoroughbred horse, and what inspiration is to an artist.  Without the right land, it is impossible to produce a classic wine.

• The Work: Making wine is recurrent, hard labor that must be performed by people with great passion and great patience, striving for perfection.  Without passion, patience and a goal of perfection, a winemaker cannot make a good wine.

• The Means: To produce a quality bottle of Bordeaux requires three long years of intensive work every day of the year.  The grapes are one year in the vineyard with the vines tended daily.  Following the harvest, the winemaker must process and age the wine for two years in the cellar.  Each day requires many decisions and a bottle of wine is the result of thousands of decisions made by the winemaker.  The extensive investment in land, building, machinery and equipment is equalled by the human investment.  Without substantial means, it is not possible to produce a good wine.

• A Philosophy: Like a well written book that fails to tell a compelling story, a wine produced without a well thought out, time-tested philosophy is only a bottle of liquid.  A bottle of wine that captures all of the senses comes from having a philosophy that never varies from the strong, strict convictions that comprise the philosophy. If only one of the above listed elements is absent, the wine will not evoke the amount of emotion and pleasure sought or be as beautiful as the masterpiece a customer deserves, whether the customer be a casual consumer or a connoisseur.