Every now and then, my boss, Sharon, will open what she calls a “stupid bottle of wine.” These bottles are so-called because, as she puts it: “It’s just a bottle of wine.” Yet their precious and rare nature allows them to command a price that most people wouldn’t dream of paying.

When I married my husband, the tenth of fourteen children, a friend asked how I was able to remember all of my new in-laws’ names. Now that I am in the wine trade, I have a similar challenge in studying the French region of Burgundy.