After spending the night drinking red wine and meditating on a green, stony mountain top, we climbed down and started on the way home.

Mr. Vino was very quiet on the drive home. After a while, he told me that he was leaving the next morning but wanted to have dinner at the best and most expensive French restaurant in town. I objected to the idea, knowing that my credit cards were maxed out and that Mr. Vino really never had any cash. But he told me not to worry about a thing – the tab would be taken care of.

I knew that I had better wear a suit, and I broke out the only suit that I own, a black one that I wear to funerals and job interviews. Mr. Vino owned a half-dozen expensive and very stylish Italian suits; how he fit them into his tiny little suitcase was a mystery to me.

As we arrived at the majestic restaurant, Mr. Vino looked like a billion bucks, and I appeared ready for a wake. The marbled lobby bar of the restaurant was abuzz, like it always was on Saturday nights. Elegant ladies dressed like Vogue models and sipping on champagne, and handsome men with finely chiseled faces and GQ hairstyles downing exotic liquor drinks.

When Mr. Vino chatted about our reservation with the hostess, an alluring beauty, she almost swooned. It was as if Mr. Vino wore Love Potion #9 as aftershave.

Struck in the heart by Cupid’s quivering arrow, our Miss Hourglass hostess seated us at the best table in the house. She handed Mr. Vino a slip of yellow paper. “Another phone number; I already have several others,” he muttered.

“You may wonder why I’ve insisted on having dinner here tonight,” he said to me with a gleam in his swimming-pool blue eyes. “I have a small, private cellar here, where I have one of the rarest and greatest red wines produced in the 20th century.”

As our tall and lanky server came over to our table, Mr. Vino ordered for both of us: filets in light pepper, coated with garlic; Cognac and cream; and salad.

Our very young, very blonde and very beautiful sommelier came over with the first bottle of the evening, Domaine Romanee-Conti, a grand cru Burgundy from the village of Vosne-Romanee – the greatest pinot noir of them all. The wine is very expensive and extremely rare; at harvest, only 600 cases are produced from a 4.5-acre parcel of land.

“Wow!” was all I could say.

“Look at the vintage,” Mr. Vino said with a giant smile.

The sommelier brought the wine closer to my face. The front label was yellowing and had hints of mold around the edges. The red lead capsule was showing a lot of gray, but the fill was high.

And then, like a Tex Avery cartoon, my eyes bugged out of my skull: 1945 – considered the greatest vintage of all time. Less than 50 bottles are known to exist.

I was in shock for over a minute as the lovely sommelier opened the bottle. With old wine, there is always a moment of apprehension when the cork is pulled: Is the cork OK? Will the cork crumble? Is the wine already vinegar?

But the cork was good. The sommelier poured about a tablespoon of wine into the tastevin, a very shallow tasting cup, placed it to her perfectly bow-shaped lips, drank and then smiled. “Heavenly,” she said in a soft voice.

“It doesn’t need to be decanted?” I asked. She shook her head no as she poured Mr. Vino a taste. He smiled and laughed.

The wine was poured all around as the filets arrived at our table. The wine had the sweet, delicious fruit that pinot noir is known for, and also had hints of coco and tar. It had a thousand flavors and aromas. The nose of the wine kept evolving: watermelon, spice, burnt cherry and orange peel. The color was red, with slight brown and orange tinges.

“Wine is a living thing,” Mr. Vino said. “Vintage is the wine’s birth date, and is a lot like our birthday. Being mortal, we often think of time as our enemy; we fear getting old, and we fear the cemetery. But as we get older, and if we are not foolish, we can become very wise, and – like this wine – become more beautiful.

“Wine just needs to be cellared properly,” he continued, as he pulled a wad of $100 bills out of his pocket and paid our bill. “And we just need to be kind to ourselves and others.”

The next morning, Mr. Vino was gone. He left a note thanking me and telling me that he would see me again soon. He told me to check my wine rack, and there I found another bottle of 1945 Domaine Romanee-Conti.