I’ve never thought to chug olive oil before. Sure, in my household, the speed at which we consume extra-virgin olive oil makes it seem like we’re pouring it down our throats: a dip for French bread, a topping for pasta (with garlic, capers, and a little crushed red pepper, of course), salad dressing—my girlfriend even uses it to make popcorn.

Still, I was surprised the other night, when Gary Beauchamp, the Director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center here in Philadelphia, told me that extra virgin olive oil, when swallowed, produces a burning sensation deep in the throat. Now, on its own, this piece of information might elicit a quick shrug, and a tossed off “hmmm… never noticed that before,” before the conversation veered in an entirely different direction.
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We got the call from Jon one afternoon in 1982. Jon was learning how to cook and decided the best place to do so was in the great kitchens of France. When he left the US, he had no idea where he’d find work. Three weeks later he had sold himself into kitchen servitude at Les Trois Marches in Versailles; Gerard Vie’s 2-star Guide Michelin jewel.

Pierre Paillardon

Jon called from the kitchen on Vie’s dime. Something astonishing was going on over lunch at Les Trois Marches. A table of 8 had arrived sporting 15 bottles of Chateau Cheval Blanc. Each bottle had been elegantly draped in linen by the sommelier, Pierre Paillardon. The wines would be served ‘blind’ over a 6 course lunch. While the participants were challenging themselves to guess each vintage, they were more interested in Paillardon’s tasting prowess. The 25 year old sommelier had just scorched the field in the very first “Meilleur Jeune Sommelier de France” competition. The guests were raising the bar.
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Stepping into any good wine store, the consumer is immediately struck by the range of bottles in stock. This range is one of the obstacles to any budding wine connoisseur. Certainly, with the growth of the craft beer market in the US, more and more brands of beer crowd the shelves; but the multiplicity of wines available remains even higher.

How then to choose what wine to bring home? Obviously, knowing the difference between varietals is a crucial starting place. Some sense of the distinction between wine regions certainly helps. With luck, you’ll have a wine merchant you can trust to point you in the right direction, once you’ve established what type of wine you’re looking for. But finally, wine purchasers continue to rely on price as a proxy for quality. Presumably, the more expensive a wine, the better it’s going to taste. Want a really good wine? Prepare to pay more money- at least that’s what conventional wisdom says.
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We had hired a CTO. The resume looked perfect. MIT, years working for a Fortune 500 company. He looked like a catch. But it just didn’t work out as we had thought it would. After just 3 weeks we were so far off the path, we had to cut bait. In the interim, the choice of both a consultancy and a platform for WineAccess had been made.

We flew to Boston and took the T to Harvard Square to the consultancy’s address. It turned out to be a house, set behind the Square about 1/4 of the way to Central Square and not surprisingly, MIT. The company was called ArsDigita, and its founder, Phillip Greenspun, had imagined something he called The ArsDigita Community System, or ACS. Greenspun may have been an egomaniac, but he was also ingenious, having conjured up something that is now called Web 2.0.
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