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.

A raucous and surprising novel filled with wonderful details about wine, Rex Pickett's Sideways is also a thought-provoking and funny book about men, women, and human relationships. The basis for the 2004 comedy-drama road movie of the same name starring Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church. Sideways is the story of two friends-Miles and Jack-going away together for the last time to steep themselves in everything that makes it good to be young and single: pinot, putting, and prowling bars. In the week before Jack plans to marry, the pair heads out from Los Angeles to the Santa Ynez wine country. For Jack, the tasting tour is Seven Days to D-Day, his final stretch of freedom. For Miles--who has divorced his wife, is facing an uncertain career and has lost his passion for living-the trip is a week long opportunity to evaluate his past, his future and himself.

Superintendent's reports on vineyard operations and production; includes information on number of vines planted, inventory of vats, requirements for Chinese laborers, bottles of wine produced, expenses, and sales calculations. Book contains approximately 30 p. of entries, with the remainder of the pages left blank.

As early as the California Gold Rush of the mid-19th century, the first settlers of Sonoma County recognized that the rich soil and unique array of climates of the region's valleys were particularly conducive for the ages-old livelihood of viticulture. Beginning in 1857 with Buena Vista Winery, Sonoma became one of the preeminent winemaking regions in the world. Chronicled here in over 200 vintage images is Sonoma's wine producing history, covering its many wineries, vineyards, towns, and townsfolk that grew up alongside the development of this fantastic agricultural enterprise.The first Sonoma Country venture was Buena Vista Winery, founded in 1857 by the eccentric Count Agoston Haraszthy. Since then, and over the course of the next 150 years, hundreds of wineries would dot the landscape; while some succeeded and lasted through the years, others fell in the face of life's trials, including earthquakes, wildfires, and Prohibition. Covering three centuries of award-winning winemaking, this new book captures in photographs the history of some of the world's most famous wineries, their proprietors, workers, and families, including those from Korbel, Geyser Peak, Simi, Sebastiani, Pedroncelli, Orr, Seghesio, and Ravenswood.

Charles Sullivan's Napa Wine: A History, is the engaging story of the rise to prominence of what many believe to be the greatest winegrowing area in the Western hemisphere. This new edition completes that picture, bringing to light more than a decade of dramatic changes and shifted norms visited upon the valley, from pholoxera-wasted vineyards to High Court-officiated territorial battles, told in a rousing, transportive narrative. Beginning in 1817 with the movement of Spanish missions into the San Francisco Bay area, Sullivan winds his way through the great wine boom of the late 19th-century, the crippling effect of Prohibition, and Napa's rise out of its havoc to its eventual rivaling of Bordeaux in the judgments of 1976 and 2006. Published in cooperation with the Napa Valley Wine Library, the book includes historic maps, charts of vineyard ownership, and vintages from the 1880s to present.

Sonoma County was the real birthplace of wine in California. But with its wealth of agricultural abundance, the region could have become the Golden State's dairy capital, apple king, berry bastion, or even big cheese. The fact that Sonoma's wine ended up as its No. 1 commodity, and then went on to win international acclaim and comparison with the best wines in the world, is due to the dedication and hard work of people as rich and fertile in character as the soil they till. In Beyond the grapes : an inside look at Sonoma County, wine writers Richard Paul Hinkle and Dan Berger unearth the stories and histories behind the region's best wineries and their wines. These are tales of people who blend artistry, ancestry, love and respect for Nature, dreams, risk-taking, technology, toil and luck--and then bottle and label it with their own personalities. Photographer Jena-Paul Paireault, who has photographed Franc's most famous wineries, cam to California to capture the spirit of the 94 Sonoma wineries included here and displays them splendidly across the book's pages.

"Lured by the discovery of gold to cross the plains to California in 1849, Haraszthy became the first sheriff of San Diego, a member of the California legislature, and the first assayer of the United States Mint in San Francisco. Long fascinated with the possibility of growing fine European grapes in America, he moved in 1856 to northern California's Sonoma Valley, where he built the first stone wineries in California, introduced more than 300 varieties of European grapes, and planted (or helped his neighbors plant) more than a thousand acres of choice wine vineyards. He made a well-publicized wine tour of Europe in 1861, wrote the first notable book on California wine growing, and built his Sonoma estate into what was widely advertised as "the largest vineyard in the world.""--BOOK JACKET.

Sonoma is one of Northern California’s most desirable places to live and a popular tourist destination, combining small-town charm, a colorful past, and its current role as the hub of one of the world’s premier wine-producing regions. A Short History of Sonoma traces its past from the Native American peoples who first inhabited the valley, proceeding through the establishment of a mission by Spanish priests, the Bear Flag Revolt that began California’s movement to become part of the United States, the foundation of what would become a celebrated wine industry, and its role today as the center of a sophisticated and highly envied food and wine culture. The book also addresses such topics as the development of local ranching and businesses and of transportation links to San Francisco that helped to make Sonoma and the surrounding Valley of the Moon a popular location for summer homes and resorts. It discusses the role of the nearby hot springs in attracting visitors and permanent residents, including people seeking cures for various ailments. There are also accounts of some of the famous people who lived in or near Sonoma and helped establish its mystique, including Mexican general Mariano Vallejo, the town’s first leader; Hungarian winemaker Agoston Haraszthy, who first saw the region’s potential for producing superior wines; and writers Jack London and M. F. K. Fisher, who made their homes in the Valley of the Moon, drawn by its beauty and bucolic lifestyle. A Short History of Sonoma is generously illustrated with vintage photographs. It is a delightful account of one of America’s most charming towns and its evolution from rowdy frontier settlement to the paragon of sophisticated living that it is today.

Isaias Hellman, a Jewish immigrant, arrived in California in 1859 with very little money in his pocket and his brother Herman by his side. By the time he died, he had effectively transformed Los Angeles into the modern metropolis we see today. In Frances Dinkelspiel's groundbreaking history, the early days of California are seen through the life of a man who started out as a simple store owner only to become California's premier money-man of the late 19th and early 20th century. Growing up as a young immigrant, Hellman quickly learned the use to which "capital" could be put, founding LA's Farmers and Merchants Bank, that city's first successful bank, and transforming Wells Fargo into one of the West's biggest financial institutions. He invested money with Henry Huntington to build trolley lines, lent Edward Doheney the funds that led him to discover California's huge oil reserves, and assisted Harrison Gary Otis in acquiring full ownership of the Los Angeles Times. Hellman led the building of Los Angeles' first synagogue, the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, helped start the University of Southern California and served as Regent of the University of California. His influence, however, was not limited to Los Angeles. He controlled the California wine industry for almost twenty years and, after San Francisco's devastating 1906 earthquake and fire, calmed the financial markets there in order to help that great city rise from the ashes. With all of these accomplishments, Isaias Hellman almost single-handedly brought California into modernity. Ripe with great historical events that filled the early days of California such as the Gold Rush and the San Francisco earthquake, Towers of Gold brings to life the transformation of California from a frontier society whose economy was driven by the barter of hides and exchange of gold dust into a vibrant state with the strongest economy in the nation.