Talking, talking, talking . . . If hyper-verbal Terry Theise (rhymes with peace) could just snag your ear for a moment, he'd make you a believer as he has sommeliers across America. He is in fact a hero to restaurant wine staffs - - if not to their bosses - - for the incredible array of tastes he brings back from the most hard-to-sell places in winedom. It didn't matter that Americans didn't want even the famous German wines. By the time he was gearing up in the late 1980s, Theise was too late to sign on those wineries, anyway. What he was trying to get Americans to drink were unheard-of wines from Germany's rising stars, wineries like Müller-Catoir and Lingenfelder.

And for a fresh challenge . . . how about egging on the Schoonmaker-esque revolution in Champagne, where a vanguard of small growers are bottling their own remarkable wines instead of selling them to the big houses? Just give Terry Theise a minute to explain.

-Richard Nalley, Forbes.Com 03.04.02