The Author

Zachary Marcus Cesare Harris

Hailing from Philadelphia, West Philly to be precise, I'm a Black guy who has sat at many tables and been in many rooms who seriously fell in love in 2006. And then through a series of friendship, associations, and tastings I wound up jumping into the wine industry; another crazy person who got the bug. In this space I am is a federally licensed wine and spirits importer and distributor that also has their own brand/label as well. My love of wine [but really it's a passion] as well entering the industry has taken me me mainly to New York City/Manhattan — tons of trade shows where I would start refining my palate and knowledgde of wines from Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, Lebanon, Macedonia, Greece, and a number of other countries — but to also to D.C. and Chicago, as well as attending a number of trade shows and trade excursions to Italy, Portugal and Spain.

Why I feel comfortable in writing this book is because of all the things I have done in life, I've come to learn understand a lot of different things, from people to systems and methodologies. And of course, the biggest education is when things don't go as planned; you learn more from failure than you do from success. What you learn in one endeavor can give you insight in another, and since I started drinking wine seriously from that fateful Friday night in 2006, I also got to see things as an outsider as well as someone who didn't come up in their wine education in the more "traditional" curriculums. I've read [and seen] too many books which are from a very narrow perspective and basically are the same pablum ad nauseum which usually goes like - "When I went to France I fell in love head over hells. The history, the food, the..." And then they have very little similar feelings about other places; I'm shocked at how many of them look at Italy.

And from my experiences, I have always seen a number of missed opportunities in the world of wine, from who sells what, to who they try to sell it to. Would you believe that most places in the United States don't know how to properly serve Port wines? And then you have the folks writing articles or holding tastings always focusing on the same ten grapes or so. And most of what you're getting isn't the best examples of what is out there, like the fact that the breadth and depth of Pinot Grigio would blow most people away who think that they are familiar with the wine. I'm not trying to curry the favor of some people by writing things along the same lines that some folks are trained.

Now, in writing this book, I took a non-linear approach. Some things flow from one chapter to the next easily, while others are almost like journal entries. The book took over one year for me to finish. At times, I bring in music; what I was listening to at the time of writing something, and sometimes I take some musical breaks as well. Some folks will appreciate the songs referenced and others might find some new tunes that they'll love. As I am also a musician, music plays a large part of my life, and no matter where you go, there is music that touches people. And in my travels, I was shocked by how many different people love not only the stuff I grew up on, but the stuff I was listening to that was recent. Hearing Eric Roberson at a hotel in Alentejo blew my mind. But also being at a restaurant in Lisbon and being gobsmacked by Iza with Dona de mim was an experience as well. Hell, there is even the time I got up during the opening night of SISAB, and showed some dance group how to better dance to some authentic rhythms from Mozambique; I don't know who taught them to dance, but it wasn't that real soul.

This of course leads me to the reason for writing this book.

P.S. Yeah, I'm also that guy who wrote "When a Black Man Loves" and some other stuff, and did a video project to it as well. Gonna do a video project to this too!