In 1991, while teaching in Prague, I traveled to visit a college friend who had married a Cypriot and was living in Nicosia. Getting there was its own epic. Still very new to international travel, I set off alone with a giant duffel bag (this was pre–roller luggage) on a week-long journey that began with a bus ride to Vienna and then a long train ride through a Yugoslavia, that was actively falling apart. Slovenia. Croatia. Serbia. Macedonia. Sleepless nights. Guarding my bag. Not eating much...

I grew up in a wine-drinking household, but I didn’t really drink wine myself until my twenties. I was very principled about waiting until I was legal to do so, which meant I arrived in adulthood as a complete novice to wine. And then I moved to Prague in 1990. It was the first wave of ESL teachers after the Velvet Revolution. The Iron Curtain had just fallen. The world felt like it was rearranging itself in real time, and I wanted to live inside that change. It was exhilarating. And...

One of the things I love most about wine has very little to do with tasting notes or scores. Wine brings people together. On our recent trip to France, we visited several wineries, but one experience in Burgundy really stood out for me: Domaine Gille . We were hosted by the wife of a husband-and-wife winemaking team whose family has been growing Pinot Noir for more than a century. She showed us the cellar and vineyards and talked about how the land has been passed down through generations. In...