Introduction

These stories are from of an odyssey that began over 50 years ago. In my final year of college I planned to attend law school. A passage in Plato (Republic III 405a) was the catalyst of an unanticipated realization that I would pursue my goals more authentically teaching philosophy at the college level. Two years earlier (1968) I had made an abrupt change abandoning a chemistry major, and to study in Vienna, Austria for a year, searching to find my own path. My interest in wine did not arise in that year but the seeds that soon grew into a passion were planted in a Viennese Weinkeller. I cannot say which – philosophy or university teaching or wine – was least expected at that moment to be guiding my travels ever since.