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It started in November, when Steve Case, the chairman of America Online, called Gerald Levin, the chairman of Time Warner. They had been introduced the month before at the Global Business Dialogue on Electronic Commerce in Paris and had gotten along well. They had talked again at the Fortune Global Forum in Shanghai.

The world’s corporate calendar is peppered with these invitation-only executive meetings. There is a published agenda for the events, but they also serve as gathering places where the most influential people in business can meet in an informal atmosphere and set a private agenda for future dealings.

In the days when power rested in the hands of kings and queens, the marriage of a fellow monarch brought the regents together for a formal event, but the course of world history was often altered at the private meals that took place around the official celebration. Flying in for the Global Business Dialogue on Electronic Commerce is not quite the same as attending the marriage of Louis XIV, but they are similar in the rich opportunities they offer for making important contacts.

During that first telephone conversation, Case described his vision of a future in which information and entertainment packaged by giant media companies would be delivered to the public on the Internet. He proposed a merger of their companies. AOL’s home page could read:

YOU HAVE MAIL
CNN
TIME
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
THE LATEST WARNER BROTHERS MOVIE

Pursuing a dream too powerful to resist, Case and Levin met on Nov. 1 for supper at the Rihga Royal Hotel on New York’s West Side and began working toward a joint vision of the future. They met again on Nov. 17 for breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel on New York’s East Side.

By the first week of January, the top negotiators had reached agreement on everything but the split on the new company. At first they had envisioned a 50-50 deal, but AOL stock was going up and Case was thinking that something like 60-40 was more appropriate.

View our entire Château Léoville Selection

If the deal was going to take place, Levin and Case needed to get together and settle this last issue. On Jan. 6, Levin grabbed a Time Warner corporate jet and headed down to dinner at Case’s home in McLean, Va. Midway through the main course they reached agreement on 55-45 -- and Case called for a bottle of Château Léoville-Las-Cases 1990 to mark the moment.

Steve Case is a thoughtful man. In fact, Case’s interest in Time Warner was to a great extent the result of AOL’s strategic research. Like everything Case does, the choice of the Léoville 1990 must have been thought out -- and, I figured, it must reveal a lot about what Case thinks of the deal.

So I checked with some of the world’s leading wine authorities.

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