December 2021 MBR The Wine Shelf

[Midwest Book Review]

The Wine Shelf

Lineage: Life and Love and Six Generations in California Wine
Steven Kent Mirassou
Val de Grace
https://www.valdegracebooks.com
9780984884957, $35.00, HC, 184pp

https://www.amazon.com/Lineage-Life-Love-Generations-California/dp/0984884955

Synopsis: Drawing upon his decades of wine making expertise and experience, and with his extraordinary gift for evocative writing, in the pages of "Lineage: Life and Love and Six Generations in California Wine", Steven Kent Mirassou takes us straight into the heart of his calling: how it looks and feels to be in a vineyard heavy with grapes, awaiting the dawn and the throbbing pulse of a harvest about to begin. It's a magical moment, and it's the beginning of a journey deep into the art, the craft, the passion, and the 8,000 years of history that lie inside the finest of wines.

Steven also helps us feel his connection to the six generations that the Mirassou family has been growing grapes and crafting wines in California, the last thirty years in the Livermore Valley. It's a region that struggles, image-wise, in the shadow of the Napa Valley but holds fast to its belief in the virtues of its hills and valleys and fertile soils, and to its unshakable faith that crafting beautiful wines and sharing them with others is, at its core, good for the heart and pure tonic for the soul.

There is high drama too. Like all family-owned wineries, Steven faced a mountain of challenges: rough growing seasons, business mistakes, the loss of cherished vineyards and more. And Steven lost something larger too -- his beloved wife, from a terrible illness. But as Steven shows us, with the proper attitude every loss can be a new beginning, an opportunity to live more deeply, and, with luck, to improve the character of the wines you craft and the enduring wisdom you can pass along to the next generation.

Critique: Offering a unique and true insider's perspective to the California wine making industry, "Lineage: Life and Love and Six Generations in California Wine" is an impressively informative blend of biography and family history. An inherently fascinating read from first page to last, "Lineage: Life and Love and Six Generations in California Wine" is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal and professional reading lists, as well as community, college, and university library Homebrewing, Distilling & Wine Making history collections.

In the literature of American wine, there is nothing quite like what Steven Kent Mirassou has brought us. Come feel the spirit, come share the wine.

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