In the last two issues of the IMS Bulletin, Xiao-Li Meng has taken us on an epicurean journey of wine, chocolate and whiskies, extracting a few teaching points along the way. To round off the three-part series, he takes us on an alphabetical exploration of the world of wine… or at least, A to F… This article is based on Xiao-Li’s publication in a wine magazine, FONDATA, titled “Seeking simplicity in statistics, complexity in wine, and everything else in fortune cookies.” Enjoy the final pour from Xiao-Li’s bottle!
“This is exactly how I imagined an educational holiday party should be.”
My epicurean and pedagogical adventures [as described in the previous two XL-Files, here and here] seemed to be all coincidental and serendipitous, but ultimately, they led to an organized effort during my deanship thanks to a leader in the world of wine, and a very supportive staff team. Every (new) dean needs some initiatives to make their presence known, or at least, to resist becoming dark matter. Mine were: professional development for students, global engagement for alumni, and fundraising for the school. The appreciation of wine served me well for both alumni engagement and fundraising, which ultimately helped the professional development initiative because alumni are the best human resource for building professional networks for students, and fundraising is a more effective route for securing funds to support professional development innovations than untangling bureaucratic skeins to seek funding for anything unprecedented.
Naturally, global engagement and fundraising called for many trips, which offered me ample occasions to test the common wisdom that wine is a social lubricant. (Buy me a drink, and I shall share my data, and with free hypothesis testing for the folklore.) These trips also seated me next to many extraordinarily rich individuals, whether entrepreneurially, intellectually, spiritually, or financially. One of them was Don St. Pierre, then the co-founder of ASC Fine Wines. Our conversation quickly turned into our shared passion. Teaching, that is.
Don St. Pierre [left] with Xiao-Li Meng and some rather large glasses of excellent wine
Don was eager to help young talents with his singular experiences from adventuring on foreign soils, literally and figuratively, including venturing into the wine business without any background in wine. His accomplishments had earned him many accolades, epitomized by being elected as the International Man of the Year by Wine Enthusiast in 2011.
An impactful professional development program should help students experience the world outside of academia before they live in it daily, by choice or by necessity. Connecting students with industry and business leaders and builders is an obvious step. Don’s passion for sharing his experience then was a perfect match. I was therefore delighted when Don became an Entrepreneur-in-Residence for Harvard’s Innovation Labs (“i-labs”), an ecosystem that supports “Harvard students and selected alumni in their quest to explore the world of game-changing innovation and entrepreneurship”. Don’s presence on Harvard’s campus also moved the dean’s seasonal toast from should-not-be-missed to must-not-be-missed. During his trip to i-labs in December 2013, he brought some iconic Australian wine (Penfolds Grange and Rieslings, and Leeuwin Estate Art Series) as well as Master of Wine Sandy Block, of Legal Seafoods. Together with my very able staff team, they turned the graduate school common room into a professional tasting room. Don started the event on December 10 with an educational presentation: “Behind the Grapes: Learning Australia’s Distinct Wine Regions,” interlaced with some of his own adventure stories. With ample food for thought, the audiences were expertly guided by Sandy to prepare the wine for their palates, or rather to train their palates to best appreciate wine that most of them could not afford. With everyone merry (me especially), my seasonal toast was as expressive and lingering as the 2007 Grange. I don’t recall a single sentence but can still hear the laughter and applause, and a faculty member’s endorsement: “This is exactly how I imagined an educational holiday party should be.” (Well, surely my colleagues have expensive taste; but thanks to Don for his generosity, we were able to run this and all subsequent dean’s seasonal toasts within our normal budget for holiday appreciation, because all wine, time, and travel expenses were provided by Don and his invitees.)
Greatly encouraged, Don and I started to plan for future seasons almost immediately after. Since we had started with Australian wine, it seemed quite natural to continue the alphabetic theme, with B for Bordeaux or Burgundy, of course.
From A to B to…
With his charm and persuasion, Don made my staff team seriously worried as to how they could satisfy the demand for seating the following year. He brought in none other than Prince Robert of Luxembourg, President of the estate of Domaine Clarence Dillon, which oversees production of the Château Haut-Brion, Château Tertre Daugay, and Saint-Emilion, among other brands. To a fully packed room on December 12, 2014, Prince Robert delineated his family’s history with Haut-Brion, and then led a tasting of a dozen wines representing the super-premium offerings of Domaine Clarence Dillon and Bordeaux, from 1995 Château Haut-Brion to 2012 La Clarté de Haut-Brion. It goes without saying (or drinking) that many attendees felt that they were daydreaming, sipping Haut- Brion with—and offered by—an actual prince. If I had not been as inspired myself, I’d have started my toast by repeating a story that I used earlier that year during my graduation speech. A professor was dreaming he was teaching. He woke up. He was. In case you are envious of those daydreamers, I’d leave it to you to spell out the moral of the story (for students, of course) or the message I intended it to convey.
Daydreaming or not, I got a bit worried immediately after the event. What could we do the next season, that would not be perceived as a regression towards the mean? But Don did it again, and this time he brought not one speaker but two: the father–son team of Harlan Estates: C is for California (sorry, Champagne). And their presentation inspired even larger dreams. As Bill Harlan, the father, wrote in his poetic A Note from the Proprietor, “Every life is full of dreams. […] Those of us who awaken at some point to the desire for something more lasting than momentary pleasures are lucky in the best sense of the word. That knowledge—the awareness that growth cannot occur in the absence of roots—makes it possible to imagine, and perhaps to pull into existence, something that may last for many generations.” I was particularly intrigued by their discussion of thinking and planning on the scale of 150 years. Why 150 years? Bill’s answer still stays with me. One hundred fifty years represent the typical generation span which still permits a direct memorial lane or knowledge path, from one’s grandparents to one’s grandchildren. Since then, I have literally expanded my dream horizons or verticals, with or without libation. For example, I’m now serving as the Founding Editor-in-Chief of Harvard Data Science Review (HDSR), which recently celebrated its five-year anniversary. But constantly on my mind is its centennial celebration. That is, if it will have one.
The dream continued in 2016 with the theme D for Diversity, showcasing a Chinese red, a New Zealand white, a you-know-where Champagne and even a Cognac, all offered by Moët Hennessy’s Estates & Wines. A Chinese red from Moët Hennessy? Yes, Ao Yun, a blend of 90% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Cabernet Franc grapes grown in a perfect mix of sunshine and shadows cast from the foothills of the Himalayas, near the legendary Shangri-La. Making China’s first luxury wine that can compete with the world’s greatest wine is a dream in progress, with its challenges as epic as its mission. “How could one build a world-class winery without electricity?” asked Jean-Guillaume Prats, the CEO of Moët Hennessy’s Estates & Wines, whose presentation (on December 5) was as captivating as Ao Yun. Wine induces passion, but ultimately a breathtaking wine is the result of sustained passion. The story of the making of Ao Yun could not have been more pertinent for the spirit of the dean’s seasonal toast, which was to thank all, and further spark passion, for supporting the graduate school as it continues its mission of turning emerging talents into world-class leaders who can address the most challenging issues faced by humanity.
But what would be E in the wine world? By then, I had completed a five-year deanship, which earned me a much-needed sabbatical—meaning that I would have uninterrupted days to seek simplicity in statistics, complexity in wine, and everything else in fortune cookies. Luck has it that my successor Emma Dench (if this last name looks familiar, Emma is the niece of Judi Dench) is a professor of classics, and Don arranged a tasting of Kir-Yianni and Sigalas wines from Ελληνική Δημοκρατία (Ellinikí Dimokratía: Hellenic State, or Greece). This perfect pairing not only was symphonized by a double E, but most importantly provided the audience with another double treat: a singular tour, led by a world-class scholar in classics, of the historical and cultural context of wine in ancient Greece, and a tasting of the award-winning wine lead by a representative from the estates of Kir-Yianni and Sigalas (on December 7, 2017).
In the following year, Don brought in yet another award-winning wine, together with its producer. On December 3, 2018, Emma’s dean’s seasonal toast featured Gaja wine, a tasting led by “the undisputed king of Barbaresco,” Angelo Gaja. The elegant and opulent wines paired perfectly with an energetic, wide-ranging presentation by the charismatic Gaja, who covered topics from the impact of climate change on wine to his philosophy and practice of teaching and transmitting knowledge.
But what is F? Fame? Finest? Fantastic? Unfortunately, the silent F turned out to be Finale. By then I had immersed myself with HDSR, a flagship publication of Harvard Data Science Initiative (HDSI), a university-wide organization. Emma and I therefore talked about moving the wine tasting to HDSI, and Don and I started to discuss the possibility of holding an annual workshop on data science for wine, which would be a natural occasion to continue the tasting event. Then the world changed its natural course, that is, nothing seemed natural or normal anymore, thanks to COVID-19. Many activities found their virtual substitutions or proxies that were, and are, at least acceptable. But wine tasting is not one of them. “Cheering” via Zoom can never match sharing in a room.
“Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous”
Was it merely a coincidence that dean’s seasonal toast ended on F? “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” Surely Albert Einstein would have been a great fortune cookie writer. (Yes, there is such a profession.) Or as Bill Harlan put it, “Everything happens in season. […] It is only in retrospect, however, that we can see how our lives come to be what they are, no matter how well or wisely or far ahead we think we plan them.” Reflecting on the progression from A to F (over a glass of 1999 Chateau Musar) turned a lingering into a longing. The seasonal toast was designated to be only for a season. It was on its way for its next season, pairing wine with data science, an artificial ecosystem, regardless of how the natural ecosystem evolves. Whether it was driven by vine or the divine, it is cycling back to its first growth, wine and statistics, as statistics itself is being fermented into the Grande Cuvée of data science.
As a data-driven fortune teller, I’m eagerly seeking data and signs, from fortune cookies to fortune/future makers. Do I have any doubt that it will happen? Of course, I do—no fortune teller can tell their own fortune. But every time I leave my (now properly thermal-controlled) meditation room, the doubt lessens, thanks to a souvenir from a post-seminar trip to Napa Valley, organized by my statistical colleagues at University of California, Davis. (Apparently, as members of a university known for its viticulture and enology studies and degree programs, my colleagues there really understand the seductive and inspirational power of wine.) It was an engraved barrel stave, welcoming anyone entering the XL-cellar.
When in doubt, add more wine.
A message on a wine barrel stave in Xiao-Li’s wine cellar / meditation room