Greg St. Clair has been at the heart and soul of our Italian wine program for 28 years. He has excelled at finding us wonderful wines from Italy at great prices, as well as being the greatest ambassador for everything Italy. He’d pour the staff a wine and accompany it with a story about eating nothing but wild boar for a week in Tuscany or climbing a precariously sloped vineyard in Soave, with such vivid details that we it was easy to feel transported to another world—his version of Italy is the best version, the one where your glass is never empty and your stomach always has room for the never-ending parade of mouthwatering food that your dear friends are cooking for you. He is passionate about Italy, and it was hard not to fall in love with it too when he was pouring wine. He embodied the dolce vita and was always there to remind us of the pleasures of the table.

The moment that nearly anyone tastes a wine, there is an immediate reaction—I like this or I do not like this—after that reaction there is rarely anymore learning. Instead of stopping at the point where you’ve deciphered whether you like the wine, one must look for the whys and hows of the wine; where is it going; what you are feeling from it… because if you stop your exploration at the first sip, you’re never going to learn the depths that are available from wine at any level.

This is the last Italian newsletter that I will write; I am retiring. This is my 28th year at K&L, and it is time for me to move on. I started working at K&L on February 1st, 1997. That seems like such a long time ago! While thinking of that, I remembered reading an article by Malcom Gladwell, quoting a couple of scientists who, after much study, wrote that it took 10,000 hours of detailed focus to master a subject or skill. Curious, I added up my days, and, on my last day—August 29th, 2024—I will have been employed at K&L for 10,071 days. I think I passed the 10,000 hour mark a while ago.