Going to Napa with Mr. Vino is a different experience. He avoids the usual tourist traps, choosing instead to camp and commune with nature – meditating about the nature of man and wine.

Mr. Vino and I hiked up to Spring Mountain, which lies west of St. Helena and is part of the Mayacamas mountain range (the boundary between Napa and Sonoma valleys). The beautiful hillside has been growing hearty cabernet, zinfandel and petite syrah since the 19th century. The fabled York Creek has provided the great Ridge winery with fruit for decades. Spring Mountain is the home of several top-notch wineries, including Keenan, Smith-Madrone and, of course, Spring Mountain Vineyard.

I was unfamiliar with the part of Spring Mountain on which we were hiking. It seemed like part of a brothers Grimm fairy tale, with giant green trees and babbling brooks. I felt like we were being watched by the beady eyes of gnomes from dark forest shadows. Everywhere around us, luscious vineyards were growing dark, ripe pinot noir and powerful zinfandel.

As we set up camp at the top of the mountain under a midnight blanket of a billion stars, we built a large fire. I sat cross-legged drinking a Ridge York Creek zinfandel and nibbling on crusty bread, sharp cheddar cheese and dry salami.

As I looked up at Mr. Vino’s blue eyes, there was a silence all around; only the sad song of the wind blowing through the trees could be heard.

Mr. Vino said one word under his breath, “Vintage.”

And then he repeated it again and again until it became a chant. As the chant went on and on, the fire began to blaze ever brighter.

After several minutes, Mr. Vino stopped and started into my eyes.

“What of vintage?” I finally asked.

“Vintage is the rhythm of the planet,” Mr. Vino began. “It is the movement of the sun and his brother stars. It is the lady moon, who watches over us, gently moving our green seas; the ice-cold November night and the boiling-hot July day. It is our center, and is part of the core of our being.

“We are all vintage,” he continued. “We are all born in a certain year, and that year affects our personality in ways that most people never understand. The Chinese know, but most of us in the Western world put human beings above nature and lose the beauty and the rhythm of being vintage. If you look at any cemetery and see any gray tombstone, you see the beginning vintage and the end vintage of that person’s life.”

Mr. Vino smiled, grabbed a piece of cheese and took a large gulp of zinfandel.

“Wine is a metaphor for life,” I said.

“Precisely,” he responded. “We all have life, and we all have a certain time span that we are here to enjoy it – just as a bottle of cabernet needs a certain time frame to develop. When we feel it is at its peak, we enjoy it. But if we don’t drink the wine, however great the wine is, over time it will become sour vinegar.”

As I opened a bottle of Spring Mountain ’98 cabernet and filled Mr. Vino’s hungry glass, he continued: “Most wine drinkers think of vintage only in terms of, is this wine going to be rich and flavorful or is it going to be a disappointment? Each vintage has its own characteristics, and it is unfortunate that we don’t let each vintage whisper in our ear.

“We are too concerned about having our taste buds overwhelmed,” he continued. “But there is a beauty, a subtlety to vintages. Vintage is the growing season; we judge nature far too harshly. When I drink wine, I think of its vintage, what happened that year and what I was doing. If you reflect on the past, you will understand the future.”

I took a sip of the heavenly cabernet and said, “Winemakers are at the mercy of the weather, because wine is made in the vineyards.”

“Very true, my friend,” Mr. Vino acknowledged. “Mother nature makes wine, not Robert Mondavi.”

It was getting cold, and I smiled as I savored the warmth of the cabernet.

“I see that you enjoy that 1998 Napa cabernet,” Mr. Vino said. “Wines often suffer from comparison, when there is really nothing wrong with their vintage at all. Wines that were panned in the wine press often come around to be lovely, such as the ’97 vintage, which was a blockbuster.”

With that, we enjoyed the rest of the evening talking about the planets, books and films. We then turned in and enjoyed the stars.