ABSTRACT
In 1938, André Tchelistcheff, a thirty-seven-year-old Russian émigré and a former White Russian Army officer who fought against the Bolsheviks in the Crimea, was studying fermentation science and winemaking in Paris at the Institut Pasteur. Here he tasted a California wine — Inglenook Gewürztraminer — for the first time. And it was here that Tchelistcheff met Georges de Latour, an elegant Frenchman who owned the Beaulieu Vineyard in the very sleepy town of Rutherford in the center of the Napa Valley. Because the enologist and winemaker for the winery, Leon Bonnet, was about to retire, de Latour needed to hire someone to fill Bonnet's position. On September 15, 1938, Andre Tchelistcheff arrived at Beaulieu Vineyards, and the California wine industry would never be the same.
