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To work a vineyard, you need a lot of guts to do that. To go out there and work all year, you almost feel that these people talk to the grapes. Wine is a lifestyle, and you can talk about it for ages. It's a passion, but it's not something I can do on a daily basis.

My unrealized ambition is to tend my vines, produce wine, and work like an artisan. I dream of rediscovering the old traditions and customs of wine growing, not necessarily to deny the technology which we have today, but to harness it and work in harmony with nature.

Winemakers have to adapt to what they're given by nature: the vines, the fruit, the soil and the weather.

I like to drink young wines, wines which are robust and have a lot of forward fruit to them.

I started looking all over for vineyard sites. I studied the conditions that make the best pinots. In the New World, you have to find the great pieces of land. Cool climate counts, but distinctive soil matters more than anything.

On a regular basis, I conduct work in the Amazon, establishing trade for medicinal plants, and working with small communities to improve their economies and to help protect forest acreage.

Eventually my goal is get a place in Ojai where I can have animals and a big garden. Just drink wine all day and hang in my garden.

Essentially, wines are fermented grape juice, so I'm trying to make the point that the wine world is about scores and marketing and kind of creating a scarce resource where they don't really exist.

My main interest is in cultivating my company.