The year is 1975, and John Sweazey, a 30-year-old former IBM computer salesman, is standing atop M. Chapoutier’s Hermitage vineyard looking down toward the city of Tain, bisected by the Rhône River. Max Chapoutier is at his side, sharing details of his family’s extensive history, of the vineyards outstretched below, gently rustling in the Mistral winds. Sweazey is enamored.
“That was a great memory,” recalls Sweazey today, now 80. He remembers telling himself at the end of the trip that he would one day create a winery that evoked the beauty, heritage and connections formed over wine during his time in France.
But it would be 30 years before he turned his dream into a reality.
Read on to hear how Sweazey chased a dream and founded Sonoma's Anaba.
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