The Quiet Innovator

As a young boy, Robert Drouhin helped his father, Maurice, conceal wine from the Nazis. At the age of 14, he began tasting wine, as a game played with his father. At 24, he became head of the family wine company, Maison Joseph Drouhin. After Maurice suffered a stroke in 1957, Robert took over. Though he received help from friends of his father, from the very beginning Robert Drouhin was passionate about viticulture and winemaking, about the wine merchant business his grandfather had founded and his father had developed. And he loved Burgundy as a region. Wine Spectator's Bruce Sanderson explains.