Happy fall to everyone and thank you very much for hanging with me and reading my journal entries. As I will be writing in the coming weeks about the day by day of my latest harvest tour to Bordeaux; I would like to share with you how my “Tour Life” started, stopped, restarted and continues to evolve. Here is my attempt at long story short, always a challenge for me.
In 1991 as a wedding gift my mother gave my new wife and I a trip on my boss’s two week Wining and Dining tour of Paris, Bordeaux and the South of France. It was absolutely fabulous but there was way too much food, wine, travel and very little rest or down time. I was 36 and my wife was 30 and we were both wiped out from the start.
On this tour my boss the great Clyde was the wine guru for this small, luxury travel company from Portland Oregon run by a gentleman named Robbie K. We are only a few days into this tour, when after lunch we were lounging like a couple of beached whales in our room when Robbie called my room and asked if I could come over and have a beer and a chat about a couple of things. I’m full but say sure.
When I arrive he says it's great to get to know us and it is obvious that I know my wines well. He then informs me that when he told the kitchen staff at our home, Hotel Cordeilien Bages that we have some expert California wine people, they all wanted to meet us and pick our brains. So he asks me if we can go into the kitchen a half hour or so early and have a quick hello with the Chef and a chat with the staff. Those visits were a great experience for me. It was also where I first met and tasted the fine food of Chef Thierry Marx. Little did I know then that It would be 31 years before I would experience his talent again at Jules Verne.
Robbie then proceeds to say that Clyde is indeed a great wine professional and the people love him but he is also very wealthy and does not really need to be conducting tours. He thinks I would be a good candidate to step in moving forward. I say wow, I’m honored and would love to and thanks very much but no thank you. I tell him this trip is killing me; I need some exercise! After a pause he excitedly says how about Bike and Wine Tours? I’m a bad bike rider and it’s a long way to the ground for me so that is also a no. I say, what about Golf and Wine? He says he’ll think about that and we stay in touch. Two years later he calls me and says lets give my Golf and Wine Tour a shot.
So on September 14th 1995 Golf and Taste the Greats of Bordeaux headed off with a hardy group of 18 customers to dine in Paris, play Chantilly Golf Club and then transfer to Bordeaux. Once in Bordeaux we would rotate the schedule between Golf days and Wine days. We played rounds at Golf de Medoc, Golf de Lacanau-Ocean and Ch. Vigiers out in the Dordogne.
The Chateaux visit days included appointments at places like Ch. Margaux, Ch. Latour, Ch. Lynch Bages, Ch. Leoville Barton, Ch. Cos Estournel and Ch. Ausone. We would also spend a day in San Sebastian Spain.
It was a beautiful time in my life. My arrangement with Robbie and the tour company over our years together worked very well for me personally and professionally. For each tour I was paid a few thousand dollars, and then every other tour I was able to bring my wife on these lavish tours and to restaurants, hotels and places we could have never afforded.
Robbie and I spent a lot of time together traveling thru France before the tours, always starting in Paris and then to Burgundy, Lyon the Rhone before driving across the center of the country to Bordeaux. We were room mates and became good friends, he was a real pro, always looking sharp, everything was always buttoned up and perfectly organized. I was also learning the tour business first hand and getting a real education of Europe and life.
The 1996 Golf and Wine Tour went great again but at the finish I told Robbie that as much as I loved it, the tour itself was just too long for me. Combining two very different passions is in itself complicated, add in almost two weeks on the road with equipment, luggage and travel time, it was a lot of work. I was way over my vacation time and it was causing problems at work. There was no such thing as time off without pay back then, the ownership even with the substantial money I was generating from these tours were not in any way helpful. I was not happy to be on thin ice!
Robbie has the idea for a shorter tour, he thinks that between both of our connections and friends in Bordeaux we could offer the greatest Bordeaux tour ever and Taste the Greats of Bordeaux was born. It would be for a small group of serious wine lovers and would be designed as a professional appointment and we would ask to taste the new baby-barrel sample as well as an older vintage. Almost all the Chateaux were very supportive and many continue to be to this day. Thank you to all of them! Of course lunches and dinners included even more vintages.
Professionally the tours became a huge part of my life and made me a much better wine person. Classified growth Bordeaux is serious business/money and if you are going to spend a lot of money on fine Bordeaux wine you want to get your advice from someone who has actually has experience, knows the estates and has tasted the wines. To be able to taste the wine again later in the year and see its development was also a great blessing.
1998 was the first of four very successful Taste the Greats of Bordeaux tours Robbie and I conducted and we were rolling smoothly along. As the years went on though I could see signs of the toll that this glamorous travel lifestyle that included weeks on the road in Spain, Italy and Germany before our tours had been taking on my friend. He was not quite as sharp getting a little ragged around the edges and was drinking heavily. God knows there is plenty of wine on our tours.
For all my tours I always recommend coming early to France to adjust to the time, you do not want to be fighting jet lag at the greatest estates in wine. When the tour ends on Saturday night I always recommend that you stay an extra day or two if you can to relax at the beautiful Hotel and Spa Les Sources de Caudalie and many customers enjoy that after a busy week.
After a few weeks on the road I’m was always anxious to come home, and my travel plans home in 2001 were the same as usual. A Sunday 4 am Cab ride from Les Sources de Caudalie to the Bordeaux airport where I’m certain the 6am plane will be parked and ready for Paris to catch AF084 at 10:15. I’m home at SFO around noon the same day and having a burrito!
This was the case on September 9th, 2001 as I headed back home. Then the 11th happens, and almost all of our customers are stuck in France, some are in Canada and the world is changed forever. Robbie has almost 2 full years of tours booked, hotels, coaches and services. In the upcoming 2 weeks, everyone cancelled.
We stayed in touch, things did not improve and he had to close his Portland office. I knew this was going to be tough for him . On October 13th 2002 my wife delivered our only child, a son, a blessing like no other in the world.
On Halloween the 31st Robbie drives to Gold Beach Oregon and commits suicide.
Indeed a very sad story to share. After some time I realized I had to carry on with the tours. Robbie has taught me well. I was very lucky to have a close friend in the wine business who I have great respect for and is originally from Nante, France. We became partners and since 2003 Cecile and I have proudly escorted over 200 customers of our own to our beloved Bordeaux. I could never deliver such an amazing experience like this without her, we are a good team.
Cecile has close friends in the Champagne region and I promised her that after my retirement from full time work at K&L I would consider Taste the Greats of Champagne. Last December we conducted our first tour and will be back for #2 this December.
That is the background my friends, along with 45 years at K&L. I hope you enjoy our harvest week journal day by day that will start next week and hope you can join us someday in person. Thanks for reading!
Cheers and Go Niners Baby! Ralph Sands
2027 Taste The Greats of Bordeaux will be conducted June 20-26
Ralph your stories are great! Guy pisano