Million Air Summer 2024

TRAVELING THE GLOBE

This year is the 20th anniversary of a famous event called the Berlin Tasting, which forever changed the world’s perception of Chilean wines, and ensured the luxury status of the best ones for the future. The man behind it, Eduardo Chadwick, presides over several high-end brands: Seña, Viñedo Chadwick and Don Maximiano Founder’s Reserve. He invited wine critics to a blind taste-o ff in Berlin to compare his wines against Bordeaux fi rst growths like Château La fi te Rothschild and Italian icons such as Solaia. It was a bold gamble that worked. To the surprise of everyone, two of Chadwick’s wines took the top spots, proving that the country’s wines could be world class. Over the next decade, he covered the globe, staging reenactments in all the world’s capitals — I attended the 2010 version in New York, and this year traveled to Chile in January to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the original. Early on, he began building awareness of his top wines in China. More than a decade ago he enhanced the prestige and visibility of Seña and Viñedo Chadwick by putting them on La Place de Bordeaux, the unique trading system that has brought the pantheon of great Bordeaux to merchants and collectors in every corner of the world.

HISTORY AND INNOVATION Portugal’s dramatic Douro Valley, with its steep terraced vineyards above a wide river, is the home of lusciously rich vintage port that takes decades to mature. Taylor’s, once called the Rolls-Royce of port brands, has been around since 1692, and now owns multiple wine estates. And over the last 30 years, it has been at the forefront of local innovation. Traditionally, port grapes were foot-trodden in ancient lagares (shallow open stone troughs) but, anticipating labor shortages, Taylor Fladgate created a mechanical foot to do the job. As fewer people age port for decades in their own cellars, CEO Adrian Bridge pushed the recent trend toward bottling very old and single-harvest tawny ports to enjoy right after purchase, some in re-creations of historical bottles. (The new 50-year-old Golden Age tawny is perfect for 50th birthday presents.) Bridge also saw tourism as a way to keep people interested in port. In 2010 he built the award-winning Yeatman Hotel in Vila Nova de Gaia, where port houses have aged their wines for over three centuries. He rejuvenated the area by masterminding WOW (World of Wine), a lavish cultural wine district that opened in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic. He’s also passionate about combating climate change, and founded The Porto Protocol in 2018. The now-global movement aims to mitigate the wine industry’s environmental e ff ects by sharing solutions and working together, with membership now numbering 250, spread across fi ve continents. taylor.pt; the-yeatman-hotel.com

The new 50-year-old Golden Age tawny

CURATION IS

EVERYTHING In February, I walked into a recently opened wine store in New York; its centerpiece is a soaring, circular central rotunda topped with a mirrored ceiling. I spotted big bottles and pristine wooden cases of Château Pétrus, Domaine du Pegau, tête de cuvée Champagne, Grand Cru Burgundy. This glamorous showcase for fi ne wine is the latest addition to family-owned Bordeaux merchant Millesima, whose cellars in Bordeaux are a Francophile’s dream — 2.5 million bottles of the best wines money can buy. The négociant system, in which merchants buy directly from chateaux and sell the wines worldwide as futures and in bottles to importers and wholesalers, is centuries old. But Patrick Bernard, who founded Millesima in 1983, broke that mold. He was the fi rst to begin selling directly to private clients; he embraced digital technology and became a top online retailer of fi ne wine. Then, he added stores in Saint-Tropez, Cap Ferret and New York. The company, now run by Bernard’s son and daughter, has 150,000 private clients around the world and handles wines from about 1,000 producers. The glitzy, expanded New York store is the fl agship. “The selection is carefully curated,” Bernard said. “To succeed selling luxury wine, you

Millesima in New York

have to focus.” millesima.com

Photos Millesima, www.numo.pt, FreeProd33/Shutterstock.com