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wrong.”
    There’s nothing cavalier in this message. Hanni, a gregarious presence with a hard laugh, has dedicated more than 30 years of his life to the grape. He’s a certified wine educator who has lectured in more than two dozen countries about flavor balancing, sensory sciences and culinary history. He’s written a book, “Why You Like the Wines You Like,” and developed food and wine pairing products. He popularized “umami” as a basic taste.
    Much of Hanni’s current efforts center on the annual Consumer Wine Awards, to be held Saturday at the McClellan Conference Center in Sacramento. It’s the rare kind of competition where wine expertise won’t get you a seat at the judges’ table. Instead, regular folks pick the winners. It’s an event that embraces “diversity of both the wines of the world and the diversity of the people who love wine,” according to organizers. In other words, minutiae between a “gold” and “gold minus” sauvignon blanc will not be chin-stroked here.
    Hanni co-founded the competition in 2009 as a way for the industry to better understand what people actually prefer. At the core of Hanni’s belief system: Matters of taste have too many variables and can’t beheld to universal truths; it’s better to listen to the people, not the wine careerists.
    It’s a revolutionary philosophy, especially for someone who has made a career in wine. But there’s one more detail to know about Hanni, and true to his character, it doesn’t pair well with conventional wine wisdom.
    He’s hasn’t had a swallow of the stuff in 23 years.
    Clouds in the Wine
    An addict’s final drink can occur almost anywhere.
    For Hanni, it happened at JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa over a glass of Meridian chardonnay, which sells for about $10 a bottle. He was a company man on a business trip, selling wine for Beringer Vineyards. The date was Dec. 16, 1993.
    His new wife, Kate, had recently checked into an alcohol treatment center. She’d quit drinking 12 years before, but relapsed after meeting Hanni, already a wine industry legend. In 1989, he became one of the first two Americans to earn the Master of Wine title, the Holy Grail for certified wine professionals. Even an advanced sommelier is a mere mortal compared to a Master of Wine, who must conquer a series of grueling tests that fewer than 10 percent of participants pass.
    A founding member of The Young and the Decadent, an influential group of burgeoning wine professionals, Hanni was coming to terms with a tough realization about himself: He was an alcoholic. Like his father, who also struggled with booze, Hanni was mostly a happy drunk, but his mood would darken after too many drinks. By now, Hanni was experiencing blackouts, drinking more and faster than ever. He knew it was just a matter of time before his marriage would crash and burn like his previous one.
    Hanni could see his drinking days were coming to a close. The glass of chardonnay in his hand would be his last swallow of alcohol.
    â€œI just knew I wanted to change,” he said. “I don’t know if I was declaring that I’d had it all—dozens of vintages of d’Yquem, 1947 Cheval Blanc, and eaten at three-star Michelin restaurants. What’s next?”
    But with this decision came a future as cloudy as a glass of unfiltered chardonnay. A Master of Wine who could not drink alcohol was Mario Andretti with four flat tires, Eric Clapton on a no-string Stratocaster.
    Hanni broke the news to his wife once he returned home from Phoenix. She worked in real estate, but Hanni was essentially the breadwinner. “The real estate market was dead at that time, and he’s a Master of Wine, which is a rare title to have,” said Kate Hanni. “I was frantic that it wasn’t going to work out.”
    Hanni also had to tell his bosses that he was done with alcohol.