Dear Chef,

Thank you for your dedication to our restaurant. For years, you have been scouring the earth for the best possible ingredients. You cultivate relationships with farmers and fisherman, even putting their names on your menus. Sometimes the products are local spot prawns from Steve, but often include the finest olive oil from an artisan farmer you met while traveling Italy for inspiration. Your hard work and passion create a menu that is delicious and truly sustainable. I applaud your efforts and must apologize for I have been remiss. I have been pairing your impeccable foods with wines that are anything but an agricultural product. Sure, here and there, I build a relationship with a local farmer (there are only a couple)- artisans who take a long view and are really trying to show what our regional terroir is like, but more often than not, your food is served alongside a wine-like beverage that has been irrigated and sprayed in the vineyard. And in the cellar, fermented with commercial yeasts and the acid adjusted just so with a bagful of tartaric. The best ones show well in a glass even though they are highly manipulated. It is time that I begin showing you the respect you deserve. From now on, I will work diligently to source wines that are not only tasty, but are a true agricultural product, like the foodstuffs you showcase on your menus nightly. I will begin pairing your food with wines made by the very same farmers who grow the grapes. Farmed naturally and without manipulation in the cellar, these wines are a time capsule- a true product of the earth. Although the farms are small and often unknown, I am confident that our guests will prefer wines meant to be shared around a table.