My wife and I were having this conversation one night when we lived around the corner from Chez Panisse ... they called us up to our table and we sat down and they brought the menu and the wine list. And on the wine list was a Syrah from Qupé Winery in Santa Barbara County.
And in the meantime, Cornelia and I had been having this conversation in which I saying, "I really think this is what I want to try to focus on." And they brought this Syrah to the table, I had ordered a bottle of it, and I stuck my nose in the glass and it was like the message from above saying, “This is what you're going to do.” It was really delicious. And I just said, "Yeah, we can do this here." Anyway, that's how I got started. It was a process.
