Ultimately wine appreciation is about the glorious moment when distinctive wine and discerning taste buds rapturously converge. Having visited over 150 wineries, I can assure you that this pleasure is possible at a winery wine tasting even after something as stressful, for example, as my rain-drenched late-night arrival on Dec. 8, 1995 in still-restless Herzegovina, well ahead of U.N. troops, knowing no one and having nowhere to stay.

As luck would have it, the driver designated to pick us up had been in an auto accident and was in hospital. You haven't lived, I guess, until you've pulled your exhausted wife and tiny kids out of a jam-packed bus into a dim-lit pot-holed downpour in what had been, only days earlier, a war zone -- and all for a wine story.

Religiously speaking, Herzegovina was known as a "miracle town," but for us the miracle was managing to find a place to sleep, thanks to a helpful Croatian lady. The next day it all ended well, at a winery. Wine endures. It's amazing.