Tasted with some guy in Mersault with the sommelier from Veritas in NYC and three dudes who were on a buying trip. While tasting there was this animated Frenchman who was talking about the Macon and winemaking and it turned out he was—Dominique Lafon!!! And we got to go to a tasting at his place by luck which was probably something no one gets to do in this industry. We tasted all of his 2003 Macon Village in the bottle…he has like 5 kinds. Then we barrel-tasted all his 2003 wines. All of them. The reds, all his Mersaults, Puligny-Montrachet (only 1 1/2 barrels). Then the grand finale—Le Montrachet. It was soooo good. Finish lasted for minutes. Wow. I made sure that I took a sip of all wines and swallowed. He was so engaging and funny. What a guy. He is my hero!

Then great lunch. Had pizza and sat outside in Beaune underneath a shaded canopy. Had an incredible pizza—they have a brick over and churned out nicely charred crust. Took less than 5 minutes to get it so it had to be a brick oven. I wanted to just fold it in half and chow it, but that would have been gauche, so I used a fork and knife.