Tale of Two Valleys: Wine, Wealth and the Battle for the Good Life in Napa and Sonoma
Author: Alan Deutschman
It’s Napa versus Sonoma, and the antics are rampant!
When acclaimed Vanity Fair journalist Alan Deutschman came to the California wine country as the lucky house guest of very rich friends, he was surprised to find a civil war being fought between Napa Valley, which epitomized prestige and wealthy excess, and neighboring Sonoma Valley, a ragtag bohemian enclave so stubbornly backward that rambunctious chickens wandered freely through town. In A Tale of Two Valleys, Deutschman wittily captures these stranger-than-fiction locales and uncorks the hilarious absurdities of life among the wine world’s glitterati. The cast of characters brims with eccentrics, egomaniacs, and a mysterious man in black who crashed the elegant Napa Valley Wine Auction before proceeding to pay a half-million dollars for a single bottle. What develops is nothing less than the struggle for the soul of one of America’s last bits of paradise.
A San Francisco Chronicle bestseller
The New York Times
As depicted in this ardent and amusing travelogue, Sonoma is a place in transition and perhaps in jeopardy. This part of wine country has a bohemian atmosphere that reminds Mr. Deutschman of Berkeley, making its full-time residents that much more resentful of wealthy new weekend people as they encroach. (A really exclusive event, Mr. Deutschman says, is liable to be held on a Tuesday night when they are not around.) Meanwhile, in nearby Napa Valley, land prices have skyrocketed to drive out pockets of free-spirited eccentricity; here the resorts and the rich hold sway. This book treats Napa as Sonoma's worst nightmare. — Janet Maslin
The Washington Post
Deutschman's tales of rebels in paradise, wealthy weekenders trying to go native and the "glassy-winged sharpshooter," an invasive insect that threatens to suck the water out of the wine, make for a fun read, although one often as light as the lavender-flavored crиme brыlйe he eats at the end of a well-described local feast. — David Helvarg
Publishers Weekly
In this brief, intoxicating book, Vanity Fair contributor Deutschman (The Second Coming of Steve Jobs) chronicles the year or so he spent as a freeloading guest at some of the finest homes in the Sonoma and Napa valleys in the heart of California's near-mythic wine country. He eavesdrops on conversations at the cafe and bookstore, talks to locals at the Tuesday farmer's market and indulges in bottle after bottle of fine wine (one even costing half a million dollars) at the best tables. While he is not shy about writing about his personal pleasure with life in the valley, he is no mere hedonist. He's also a fine reporter, who documents the force new tech money pouring in from Silicon Valley is exerting on the shabby gentility of the wine region. After revisiting some of the same territory covered earlier by James Conaway in Napa and The Far Side of Eden, Deutschman picks up the story in present-day Sonoma with the community's efforts to defeat the very same kind of luxury resorts that first made Napa the darling of glossy travel magazines. He serves up the drama glass by glass, starting with a rather mellow debate over loose chickens in the town square, building to the battle between the town folk and a luxury hotel developer, and culminating in an election fight between the new professional class and the bohemians for control of the Sonoma City Council. What remains longest in the memory are his portraits of the wine makers themselves-some known stars, such as Jean Phillips, proprietor of cult winery Screaming Eagle, and others less so. Rarely has such an exclusive world and its inhabitants been made so accessible. (Apr.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
Deutschman (The Second Coming of Steve Jobs) has written a highly readable account of life and strife in two of California's eminent wine valleys-Napa and Sonoma. In his view, Napa has fallen victim to the excesses of skyrocketing real estate prices, luxury estates, and pursuit of the perfect wine. Sonoma is poised to follow the same path unless an assorted group of organic farmers, retirees, and aging hippies can prevent it. Deutschman gives us his impressions of their successes and setbacks as they win city council seats, argue among themselves, fight off a luxury resort, and create a nature preserve. His book's strength, however, is its many striking (and not always flattering) profiles of people who shaped Napa's and Sonoma's past and are shaping the valleys' futures. Recommended for general interest readers and public libraries wherever winemaking is a way of life. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/02.]-Andrea Dietze, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A skimming visit to the cultural-political dichotomy incarnated by the Napa and Sonoma valleys. They may be neighbors, but they have gone their separate ways: Napa went upscale, elegant, and refined; Sonoma kept it real and welcomed the bohemians. Journalist Deutschman (The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, 2000) embraces this bifurcation—the irreverent and anachronistic vs. New Money, the innocents vs. the soulless, elitism vs. small town, residents vs. weekenders, Sebastiani vs. Mondavi—and quickly throws his lot with the free spirits and iconoclasts. They are an appealing group: subversive, mischievous, and fully aware that they are on to something very special in their Sonoma Valley homes. The Napa-ites are far less attractive, typified by the notorious Wine Auction and restaurants in which the farmers who supply the tony vegetables couldn't afford to eat. Of course, they make excruciatingly easy targets: "The plutocrats . . . could they ever imagine that they are making pilgrimages to listen to trailer people?" Readers may be irked or uncomfortable with this neat parting of the waters, figuring that maybe there is something under the crust that ought to be poked at. Not Deutschman, who operates in only a small amount of the acreage he could explore, spending most of his time following a local election and the fate of a couple of land-use initiatives. These are not uninteresting, and their impact will be critical to the future of Sonoma. But readers will wish for other impressions than those radiated by Deutschman's small circle of friends. When a small-scale farmer suggests that a ballot initiative isn't "as simple as people are making it out to be. People haven't looked at itfrom a whole perspective," Deutschman characteristically fails to pull that comment up and thoroughly examine its roots. The characters and mindsets he portrays here are overly flogged and easily pigeonholed; a sampling from deeper down, where it might be democratically messy and maybe even revelatory, would have been nice. Readable, but shallow and too neat.
New interesting book: Readings in Industrial Organization or Corporate Public Affairs Interacting With Interest Groups Media and Governments
Great Lake Effects: Buffalo beyond Winter and Wings
Author: Junior League of Buffalo
The Junior League of Buffalo invites you into a world of...Hidden Treasures, Captivating Art, Intriguing Facts, Fabulous Recipes ... truly Buffalo Beyond Winter and Wings. The 1997 New England Regional Winner of the Tabasco Community Cookbook Award.
No comments:
Post a Comment