There are not a lot of Americans who are led by their passion to become winemakers in Burgundy. Blair Pethel stumbled across this passion by chance in the late 1980s with his first trip to the region.

He worked a harvest in 1999 and moved there permanently with his family in 2003, and started making wine in 2004, after qualifying in viticulture and oenology with a year`s course at the famous Lycée Viticole of Beaune. He apprenticed with several top winemakers -- Patrice Rion in Premeaux-Prissey and Jean-Marc Pillot in Chassagne-Montrachet, to name two -- and thanks to them learned to work both the vines and the wine with care and respect.

The estate at this point is very small, but its wines are not. All Domaine Dublère`s wines demonstrate that it`s not necessary to be big to be extraordinary.