DOMAINE DUBLERE

Burgundy, France

Domaine Dublere is a Burgundian wine estate with a difference: It is owned and operated by an American -- me, Blair Pethel.

I stumbled across Burgundy in the late 1980s with my first trip to the region. I was living and working in Londona t the time, and I was so beguiled that I started coming several times each year, meeting people, tasting wine, learning. These trips culminated in 1999 when a sabbatical from my previous career as a political journalist in Washington, D.C. I came and worked the harvest that year, and after the experience, it was only a question of when and how I was going to become a winemaker here. I moved to Beaune permanently with my family in 2003, and started making wine in 2004, after qualifying in viticulture and eonology with a year's course at the town's famous Lycee Viticole.

In many ways I have reached my destination, although I learn something most days. My wines, each made with the same care, have been reaching global markets for over 10 years now. From youth, they are enjoyable as a complement to wonderful food, or alone as an aperitif.

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