Meet Michele D’Aprix, America’s distinguished ambassadress to Bordeaux. Michele’s love affair with wine began in 1997 when she walked into the cellar at Dry Creek Vineyard. It was her first job interview at a winery, and she was one of their three candidates that year. She recalls, “The enologist ultimately hired me because, at the time, I was a bartender in Boston. They figured a bartender’s ability to multitask outweighed my lack of experience. I was only a third year, O-Chem undergraduate with no lab skills whatsoever.” Michele earned her Viticulture and Enology degree from UC Davis, and today she runs her own wine importing business, Christopher Imports, and calls New York her home. Come harvest time, however, Michele heads to France, where she is not only winemaker at Chateau Beausejour but also makes wine under her own label in St. Emilion, “Pentimento.” A few years ago she decided to spread her reach and began crafting wines in Costieres de Nimes, a great-value appellation just south of the Rhone Valley. A blend of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvedre done entirely in stainless steel, this is a seductive red with no rough edges, all pure dark juicy fruit with a bouquet of violets and a hint of smoke.