In a not so distant time

Long before I was referred to as the so-called Einstein's Driver in the journey to digitize the Philippine built environment, I spent time in the agricultural sector, in two separate lives.

My long conversation this morning with young agricultural engineers on how Building Information Modeling (BIM) can be a tool for them in their practice, given the scope of the Philippine Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Act of 2016, reminded me of my time in the agriculture sector.

In the late 1980s to the early 1990s, I had a concurrent delegation to our agri-aqua business (feed production, aquaculture and processing for export), and again in the mid 2000s when I got another concurrent delegation to our wine-making venture, along side the execution of green field cement plants.

The month of March also reminds me that it is now time for the bud to break and when action in the vineyard starts after the dormancy of a long and cold winter of northeast China. The start of a new season!

My life in the wine business exposed me to three "giants". An Australian viticulturist who introduced "drip system" to the vineyard, a French oenologist (who one time called me to the cellar and told me that he just made a miracle like that in Cana), and a Bordeaux-trained Chinese winemaker whose wine from her native Nigxia Province is now not only one of China's best but is also recognized worldwide.

The last time Gerard and I had a meal and drank together was in the winter of 2013 at Penglai City as I was doing our last exit from China. And while we kept in touch via Skype after my China-days, I never had the chance to see him again until he passed away February of last year. I lost not only a mentor but a true and jolly friend as well (perhaps as he was born a day after Christmas).

Born in Madagascar, schooled in France's Bordeuax University in the 1960s, and who first came to China in the mid 1990s before revolutionizing the Chinese wine industry, Gerard would always cook bouillabaisse for me during my visits to Penglai. Needless to say, we drank a lot of wine (including new wines fresh from the vats or Beaujolais in late autumn) as part of what he says is my contiuing education. I also recall the first time I tasted over a hundred wines with him, when he reninded me not to be tempted to drink the wine. He was also the one who introduced Emma to us, who is now considered the "best winemaker" in all of China, as Gerard described her in a 2015 New York Times interview.

Putting to storage the wines I got as token of appreciation for the sharings I did the past few weeks, I saw one of the last bottle of wine from the Penglai estate I brought home in the spring of 2013. I was hoping to find the bottles of our sangiovese (the first to do so in China) that the director-general of one of the world's iconic wines politely described as "having potential", but did not find any save for the Syrah-Cabernet Sauvignon we bottled as a part of our vineyard selection. This last bottle shall never be uncorked as a remebrance of those time. Oh I did not say that part of my role (or I should say the best role that was envied by my friends) was to taste the wine before they are bottled.

Now and as I found myself in a new space, my agriculture days, especially my wine years in China are now bygone, but will always be a part of me. My continuing passion for wine is something that I will also attribute to Gerard and Emma, two of the best and most passionate wine makers I have ever encoutered.

In all these lives and journeys I have had and as I continue to live life with passion, I am always reminded of what Justice Oliver Wendell Homes said:

"to reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, sometimes without the wind, sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie in anchor."