Years ago as a university student in Tokyo it was my good fortune to have a job with a famous design firm that had me in every week to critique their designs, write the English-language text for their creative work and occasionally translate and interpret for colleagues visiting from abroad.

Rubbing elbows with the doyens of Japan's design world was exciting, and I enjoyed my outings with the business manager, Mr. Hatano, a connoisseur of not only cuisine but also wine, whiskey and sake. He was especially fond of wine and for five years was my mentor for wine and washoku (Japanese food), taking me pub- and club-crawling to his favorite haunts all over the Ginza.

How fascinated I was when he ordered various gourmet delicacies and imported wines, which he understood very well, decades before Japan had any appreciable wine sophistication.