The place was a San Francisco hotel ballroom. The hushed well-dressed assembled had just watched Sandy McNally open a bottle of an 1878 Bouchard Beaune, a red wine from Burgundy.

It was the early 1980s, and a century is a lot to ask from a light red wine, regardless of its birthplace. But McNally, handling fine wines for Heublein's auction of rare wine, proclaimed the wine sound, and then added, "a lot more than sound."

Robert Mondavi was one of the first to get his half-oun ...

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