Brut Strength

As I’m sitting in traffic on the 405, head- ing toward Orange County, I think to myself, Why am I doing this again? Oh, yeah, that’s right, I’m on my way to the Hi-Time Wine Cellars in Costa Mesa—where supposedly there is one of the greatest collections of champagne outside of Reims, France—to meet Jim Duane, the store’s champagne buyer, who, I hear, is more passionate about bubbly than Winston Churchill. Okay.

by Nathaniel Gunter