Top to bottom, left to right: at the Breeder’s Cup thoroughbred races in Del Mar. The Baedeker family has been in the thoroughbred racing business since the 1940s and my grandfather and father carried on the legacy of the Baedeker Guide into horse racing; dinner with Alain Dominique Perrin in New York. Alain was the founder of the Cartier brand and owns Chateau Lagrezette in Cahors; tasting samples to import at the Rothschild’s Domaine d’Baron Arques in Limoux, France; a proud founder holding up bottles of Faire la Fête in downtown Limoux, the “birthplace of bubbly wine”; with 13th generation winemaker and owner Catherina Grans in the family’s Trittenheimer-Apotheke vineyard in the Mosel; with the Dierbergs and winemaker Tyler Thomas in the caves of the stunning Star Lane Winery; with Grapejuice Group founder and CEO Danny Keefe in Campania, Italy; at the oldest wine bar in the world, Gordon’s, in London; a stakes-winning thoroughbred reaches out to say hello from Bob Baffert’s barn as my friend and European wine broker Chris Braun looks on; with my dear friend Rocío Muñoz Marín, global export director for Grup Perlalada in Barcelona; with Tom and Peter Stolpman and dear friend Peter Neptune, Master Sommelier, at the Stolpman family vineyard in Santa Barbara; on my way to the Toques et Clocher wine auction in Limoux. This ancient auction raises money each year to renovate the medieval towers across the 40 small wine villages that make up the region.