Introduction

In August, 2003 I was laid off from my job. The job had been a bit stressful for many years so I decided to take a few months off and delay seeking other employment.

In the meantime, I decided to head back to Europe for a trip. I had cycled from Geneva to Nice the previous year and found the French Alps to be a wonderful place to visit. In fact, we buzzed through a small village on one of the last days of the cycling trip and thought it would be a good place to return for a short visit. Now I had the chance.

I was also intrigued with stories from friends who were mostly living in France and their attempts to bring wine back into the U.S. I brought a few bottles back into the U.S. in the mid-80s and was almost thrown in jail… But U.S. customs had changed their tune recently and it was much easier to import wine.

I called some local transfer agents and found one that would actually ship a container (up to 1 cubic meter) of wine back from southern France to a shipping company warehouse not far from my house. And rather inexpensively, as well.

So, the trip was on. I needed to travel to France, purchase and gather the wine and ‘box it up.’ A shipping company in southern France would pick it up and transfer it to Marseilles. From there, it would travel to the east coast of the U.S. by ship, then by truck to the local warehouse. And this had to be done before the weather turned cold as I didn’t want to pay for a temperature-controlled container or truck transport (read: $$$).

I also wanted to visit some friends I hadn’t seen in a few years in Switzerland so I added time to see them. And, since I was bike trip mode, decided to head to Italy for a few days to reconnoiter a cycling trip in northern Italy.

And off I went in October!