Tourbillon: cars. wine. life.

Leah Jorgensen Jean

Legendary French car maker Bugatti just launched its latest masterpiece, Tourbillon, a super-coupé hybrid “hypercar”, under the new ownership of Croatian powerhouse Rimac, as part of a deal with Volkswagen and Porsche.

Tourbillion is stealing automative headlines for its 250 mph, 1800 hp, electronically enhanced capabilities – and for its elevated and powerful performance features.

 “Beauty, performance, and luxury formed the blueprint for the Tourbillon; a car that was more elegant, more emotive, and more luxurious than anything before it. And just like those icons of the past, it wouldn’t be simply for the present, or even for the future, but pour l’éternité–for eternity.” – Owner, Mate Rimac

The name Tourbillon has interesting origins. Rather than honor a former Bugatti racing driver – as in Pierre Veyron and Louis Chiron – this new car is named after the most intricate device in watchmaking, a wrist machine designed to counteract the effects of gravity, ensuring the highest possible accuracy in timekeeping.

Of course, that watch was named for a tornado.

This was an amusing discovery for me – from tornados, to watches, to cars, to wine.

I was reading a magazine on a flight to visit my parents on the east coast, and I saw an article about the Bugatti Tourbillon. I did a double take because of the name. I laughed and showed the article to my husband and said something along the lines of we aught to have a beautiful wooden box made up for a case of my 2021 “Le Tourbillon” Cabernet Franc to be included in every single model sold in the states. To which he said it’s time to raise the price.

I do not ardently follow cars. Occasionally, my husband and I take our five year old son to the local “cars and coffee” meet ups where only classic cars are on display in the parking lot of the local small town high school. We’re there for the old trucks.

That said, I have some serious Formula One fandom in my DNA, due to my mother’s two older brothers.

My Uncle Gary, who was also my godfather, had signed F1 posters in his home, including original Monaco Grand Prix posters that are probably worth a fortune now. I hope my cousin kept those! My Uncle Gary had so many amazing stories of his many stays in Monaco and Montreal, his two favorite races. In Monaco, he rubbed elbows with the likes of Mick Jagger and was trusted with the keys to a swanky rooftop bar, with one of the best viewing terraces offering a clear eye shot of the Fairmont Hairpin, to close it down whenever he and his friends were ready to leave.

My biggest regret in life is that I never got around to attending F1 with my uncles. My cousins and I often talk about getting tickets and going to Monaco and Montreal in honor of two brothers who loved Team Ferrari and knew everything there is to know about these cars, the drivers, and the races.

My Uncle Gary was good friends with Eddie Sachs, the Allentown native driver who was killed in the 1964 fiery crash involving seven cars, one of the worst in Indy 500 history. Uncle Gary was also good friends with Mario Andretti. Andretti was involved with the Nazareth Speedway in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, not far from where Andretti built his dream home dubbed La Villa De Montona in Nazareth.

Speaking of cars and families – there is a thread here that kind of weaves this all together – my grandmother’s family was close to the Iacocca family in Allentown, Pennsylvania, as in the family of famed American automobile executive Lee Iacocca. He was recently portrayed by actor Jon Bernthal in the 2019 film “Ford v Ferrari”. Anyway, they’re all buried near each other in the same cemetery at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Whitehall, that is, many members of the Iacocca family and my grandmother’s family. That’s a funny thing to bring up, but it’s true. My grandmother’s family was close with Lee Iacocca’s parents, Nicola and Antonietta, my grandmother and her siblings all knew Lee’s cousin, Al Iacocca, who later ran the family business in the Lehigh Valley, the popular restaurant chain Yocco’s Hot Dogs. The name Yocco’s came about because locals could not pronounce Iacocca. Yocco’s Hot Dogs was a regular visit every time we went to my stay with my grandparents in Allentown. The best part – the chili sauce and the side order of pierogies, a staple food in the Lehigh Valley.

When I was twelve years old, I was with my mom and my grandmother at my family’s well known Italian grocery store, Stravino’s, and they were chatting with Al Iacocca and the whole time I thought it was Lee! They looked so much alike. Lee was really famous back in the 1980s and even considered running for president. He was a local hero in the Lehigh Valley and I was quite star struck… with his cousin! I was hiding by a wine barrel display, snacking on olives at the deli counter, too shy to say anything. My mom still teases me about that to this day.

I would be remiss to not mention my grandfather’s obsession with sport cars, which is clearly where my two uncles got their inspiration for motor sports and performance vehicles. In the 1950’s my grandfather first owned an MG, then a Triumph TR series, and then he bought the very first Jaguar in the Lehigh Valley, the XK150. Apparently, he liked the British sport cars.

So, I’m racing around a track here about cars, family and food … these are all things that conjure up nostalgia. But what about wine?

In 2021, after a whirlwind exploration for a new, and very last minute Cabernet Franc source, I found myself at Kiona Vineyards in the Red Mountain AVA. I could not get the Cabernet Franc I normally sourced from the Rogue Valley because of devastating drought. So I was getting 3 tons of Cabernet Franc from old vines from a single vineyard for one single vintage.

The resulting wine – Le Tourbillon.

I already wrote about the whirlwindy story of securing the Kiona Vineyard fruit (to read it, click here) and making my first Cabernet Franc from Washington state since my very first vintage, the 2011 Blanc de Cabernet Franc from Les Collines Vineyard in Walla Walla. That was ten years between my only Washington sourced wines.

And after learning about the Bugatti Tourbillon, after the amusement, I considered what makes certain things that are expensive, exclusive and collectible so special to some while being insignificant and even offensive to others.

At a time when the economy is shaking families, and aging Americans are worried about retirement, and younger working Americans are worried about not earning enough and struggling with housing, and conflicts of war and genocide are exploding around the globe, and so on, it seems ridiculous and even outlandish to see images of a car like Bugatti’s Tourbillon. I’m sure there are many who believe a car like Tourbillon is wasteful and feeds the greed in society. It’s probably offensive to many to see a car launch with a price tag of $4 million. What is the point of making cars like Tourbillon if not to just showcase the obscene wealth and greed of the ultra rich?

I’m not going to defend the car or those who will buy the car.

I am going to take a moment to reflect on the impulses of many who will see a car like the Tourbillon and get excited. A genuine exhilaration will come up for many, actually.

For some, when a car like Tourbillon comes along, the drive to own one is simply fueled by an inner need for attention, like fetishing anything deemed cool, showy, impressive and ultra exclusive.  But for true performance car enthusiasts, the ones who are all about appreciation, there’s a real emotional and intellectual connection that happens, not just in response to aesthetics, but there’s a genuine appreciation for meticulous detail, unbridled creativity, next level innovation, and passion that is borderline obsessive. It’s the highly functioning creatives in the world that tend to be the ones who feel this way about something as arbitrary for others as a car.

The mechanics drive the curiosity, the fascination, and the appreciation. Mechanics have long been the basis of wonder for so many, going back to early clock makers and then watch makers. This can also be expressed in the fascination with steam punk. The earliest train evolving into steam engines fuel a special kind of nostalgia. I have met obsessive steam train collectors – not toys, but real mechanically manufactured models that have fervent followings and conventions. Let’s not forget the airplane and it’s humble origins in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina with the Wright Brothers.

Before all of this, five hundred years ago, there was a man who was so far ahead of his time, his drawings, renderings and plans are still studied today in many advanced courses in architecture, art history and mechanics. Of course I’m referring to Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci is considered the father of modern mechanics due to his pioneering studies and detailed drawings that explored the principles of mechanics and motion. His designs for machines like the helicopter, tank, and numerous other mechanical devices showcased a deep understanding of gears, levers, and pulleys, which laid the groundwork for future technological advancements. Additionally, his methodical approach to studying the forces and movements in nature greatly influenced the development of engineering and mechanical sciences.

I studied da Vinci in art history courses in college and probably would have joined a da Vinci cult if one existed. I came across a book that significantly influenced the rest of my adulthood. Michael Gelb wrote “Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci” and outlined da Vinci’s seven principles that led him to become a genius thinker: Curiosity, Commitment to Test Knowledge, Continuous Refinement, Embrace Ambiguity, Balance between Science and Art, Cultivation of Grace, and Systems Thinking.

When I mentioned above the highly functioning creatives in the world, I meant those who think like Leonardo da Vinci.

That, and a little bit of nostalgia can fuel an emotional and intellectual connection to anything. I believe nostalgia plays into the emotions and intellectual connections to things that excite us – whether it’s cuisine, shoes, cars, flowers, jewelry, dolls, antique furniture, music, art, wine, books – anything. Nostalgia brings us to our grandmother’s experiences that influenced us, or to our uncle’s stories that were generously shared with us, or to our twelve year old selves learning about the world for ourselves, and eventually to deciding what is truly interesting and worth studying or remembering, if only for the fun of it. Or, better yet, just for the fun of it!

I suppose it might be true that superfluous things don’t really matter in life. So why have cars beyond basic boxes with wheels that all look the same? Why should the engineers at Bugatti dream up a car like Tourbillion? And why make a wine meant to age and increase in value over time for collecting?

Superfluous things are mostly for those who create them. It’s true. They are the magically engineered manifestations of highly functioning creative dreamers. These things might not cure diseases or save lives – or they might? It was GM and Ford that switched out pickup trucks for breathing machines, building ventilators that were crucial for some COVID-19 patients in 2020. Bugatti might not be building ventilators, but who knows what their innovation might lead to next?

And maybe it’s okay to have these wildly out of reach things in the world simply for the sake of human nature seeking to create the extraordinary.