Vitis vinifera cultivar. Drawn at the Bud and Jean Van Löben Sels vineyard in Oakville. I recall a particularly fine bottle of Alsatian Sylvaner that Marsha and I had in the dining room of the Hotel Meurice in Paris in January of 1975. No vintage year was given on the wine list, but it proved to be from 1962. We wondered if it could still be good. It was. It had simply marvelous flavor, bouquet, body, balance—everything just right for the meal we had ordered. It was one of those really wonderful eating and drinking experiences that was as much a surprise as it was a pleasure. Eight months later, when I stood in the hot sun of the Napa Valley to look again at Sylvaner grapes, I wondered about how another portion of the same plant that had produced the grapes for the superb bottle of wine we had had in Paris had gotten all the way to the beautiful Napa Valley, and what sort of beverage fit for the gods would be made from it here. —Henry Evans
$150.00 each.