TED LEmoN SET out to write the Great American novel. Luckily for fans of Littorai, his estate on California’s Sonoma Coast, he focused instead on composing poetry in a bottle – and ended up making great American wines. Classically trained in the home of terroir, Burgundy’s Côte d’or, he is not interested in making ‘world-class Pinot Noir’. Rather he seeks wines with a sense of place – be that via the Sonoma Coast, Alexandra Valley or his new project, Burn Cottage in Central otago.
The written word has played a large part in Lemon’s life. Winemaking does not run in Lemon’s family – he grew up in suburban New York State, where his father, Richard, was the ‘Talk of the Town’ columnist for The New Yorker and covered the Beatles’ first visit to the Big Apple for Newsweek.
Lemon Jr studied French literature at Brown University, and dreamed of that great American novel. In his early 20s he scraped a living as a nursing assistant at a Jewish care home while composing the first chapters of the book. on realising that he would not emulate John Steinbeck, he was soon on a plane to Dijon for further academic rigour.
