Grab your glass and take to the wine trail with food genealogist Sherry Monahan as she traces the roots of "California's Vines, Wines & Pioneers." While cowboys and early settlers were writing the oft-told history of the Wild West, California's wine pioneers were cultivating a delicious industry. The story begins when Franciscan missionaries planted the first grapes in Southern California in 1769. Almost a century later, news of gold drew thirsty prospectors and European immigrants to California's promise of wealth. From Old World vines sprang a robust and varied tradition of wine cultivation that overcame threats of pests and Prohibition to win global prestige. Journey with Monahan as she uncorks this vintage history and savors the stories of California's historic wineries and vineyards.
The beginning of history for California wine starts with 17th-century , but the industry and commercial powerhouse that commands 60 percent of the United States market was birthed 200 years later, the product of a Hungarian aristocrat, European grapes, and the Sonoma Valley. In this groundbreaking book by historian and bestselling author Charles L. Sullivan, the untold history of Sonoma wine serves as backdrop to the turbulent story of California s first commercial winery, Buena Vista, from its founding by brilliant but quixotic Agoston Haraszthy, through phyloxera plague and the dry years of prohibition to its present-day market prominence. Sonoma Wine and the Story of Buena Vista is a scholarly study of two centuries of California wine history, told in a riveting narrative that will engage and delight.
The author of A History of Wine in America recounts the beginnings of California’s wine trade in the once isolated pueblo now called Los Angeles. Winner of the 2016 California Historical Society Book Award! With incisive analysis and a touch of dry humor, The City of Vines chronicles winemaking in Los Angeles from its beginnings in the late eighteenth century through its decline in the 1950s. Thomas Pinney returns the megalopolis to the prickly pear-studded lands upon which Mission grapes grew for the production of claret, port, sherry, angelica, and hock. From these rural beginnings Pinney reconstructs the entire course of winemaking in a sweeping narrative, punctuated by accounts of particular enterprises including Anaheim’s foundation as a German winemaking settlement and the undertakings of vintners scrambling for market dominance. Yet Pinney also shows Los Angeles’s wine industry to be beholden to the forces that shaped all California under the flags of Spain, Mexico, and the United States: colonial expansion dependent on labor of indigenous peoples; the Gold Rush population boom; transcontinental railroads; rapid urbanization; and Prohibition. This previously untold story uncovers an era when California wine meant Los Angeles wine, and reveals the lasting ways in which the wine industry shaped the nascent metropolis.
Steve Heimoff takes readers on an intimate and enlightening tour of one of California’s most diverse and accomplished wine areas as he travels along the Russian River and talks with growers and vintners from the Cabernet country of the Alexander Valley to the Pinot Noir producers of the Sonoma coast. This first comprehensive look at the natural history and winemaking practices of the region by one of America’s most respected wine critics brings the Russian into the exalted company of the great wine rivers of the world—the Loire, the Rhône, the Rhine, the Mosel, and the Douro. Part wine guidebook, part history and geology, and part travelogue of the author's adventures in wine country, A Wine Journey along the Russian River is essential reading for wine lovers—both those fortunate enough to be familiar with the region and those who have never been there. Heimoff guides readers along the length of the scenic river, from its warm, northern border with Mendocino out to foggy Jenner. He discusses the history and progress of Alexander Valley Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon, Russian River Valley and Sonoma coast Pinot Noir, Sonoma County's Rhône-oriented wines, old-style field blends, and other interesting wines. In the process, he introduces readers to many of the growers and vintners who have made Sonoma County famous: Dick Arrowood, the Rochiolis, the Seghesios, Tom Jordon, Bob Cabral of Williams Selyem, Jess Jackson of Kendall-Jackson, Merry Edwards, and many others. Describing how the river's formation and evolution, both products of the planet's fiery tectonic past, as well as the region's complex climate, have created the potential for unparalleled viticultural enclaves, and recounting how a variety of people realized that potential, Heimoff provides a fascinating explanation of why the Russian River's reputation as a premium winegrowing region continues to grow.
- California is the largest wine region in the world, as well as one of its most-regarded - this book tells its story - Articles and extracts from some of the most loved wine writers of yesterday and today - An essential wine book for every wine lover and wine student - Beautifully designed and illustrated to bring the region to life on the page On California explores the grapes and the people who have made California wine great. The pioneers, the boffins, the whizz-kids and scientists, many of whom tell their stories on its pages - some in precious archive material, others have set down their thoughts mid-pandemic in 2021: Randall Grahm, Gerald Asher, Steven Spurrier, Paul Draper and Warren Winiarski take a bow.... Includes: California wine and the future: where will the 'California spirit' lead next? The 'Hollywood Grape' our authors chart the path of Cabernet Sauvignon, from the wish-list of Thomas Jefferson to the hallowed hillsides of Stag's Leap and Screaming Eagle 1976? Of course it was a competition! Steven Spurrier and Patricia Gallagher look back at the motivations behind the famous Paris wine tasting Top New York sommelier Victoria James tells of her near-death introduction to the whacky world of winemaking in Sonoma Will the real Zinfandel please stand up? Paul Draper seeks out the true heritage of California's versatile orphan grape Contributions from top California writers: Elaine Chukan Brown, Mary Margaret McCamic MW, Karen MacNeil, Esther Mobley, Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, Liz Thach MW, Clare Tooley MW, and Kelli White Hugh Johnson, Jane Anson and Fiona Morrison MW introduce California's intrepid wine pioneers Rex Pickett's Sideways heroes, Jack and Miles, clink glasses over the Central Coast's finest Pinot Noir A-Z: from 'Bob' Mondavi to Xylem sap-sensors and pink Zinfandel - California wine in bite-size Hugh Johnson pays tribute to Bordeaux master Michael Broadbent.
At first there were the horticulturists and wine growers, then came the wine makers, the coopers, and the cellar masters. Inevitably there were wine shippers and wine merchants. Chemists and biologists added their skills in the past two centuries, and only very recently came the oenologists and the professional wine tasters. Wine writers play an important role in today's wine trade, and there were always wine connoisseurs and wine snobs. From 5000BC to the modern day, this book provides a chronological history of the wine pioneers through the ages.
"I have depended on Charles Olken's Connoisseurs' Guide to California Wine for more than 35 years. This new Guidebook is a perfect complement. No other book comes close to its thoroughness, accuracy, and usefulness. It is a must for travelers in California's wine country."—Charles L. Sullivan, author of Zinfandel "Olken's perspective on California wines is unmatched: he spans the landscape from the postwar pioneers to the newest garagistes, and wine criticism from before Parker to the age of blogs. This new guidebook is informed by his 35 years of careful, candid, and comprehensive attention to California wine."—John Winthrop Haeger, author of Pacific Pinot Noir
Sullivan's encyclopedic handbook traces the Golden State's wine industry from its mission period and Gold Rush origins down to last year's planting and vintage statistics--a complete reference, in handy A to Z format. 75 photos plus maps & tables.
