When the Rivers Ran Red: An Amazing Story of Courage and Triumph in America’s Wine Country
- ISBN13: 9780230605749
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Today, millions of people around the world enjoy California’s legendary wines, unaware that 90 years ago the families who made these wines–and in many cases still do – turned to struggle and subterfuge to save the industry we now cherish. When Prohibition took effect in 1919, three months after one of the greatest California grape harvests of all time, violence and chaos descended on Northern California. Federal agents spilled thousands of gallons of wine in the rivers and creeks, gun battles erupted on dark country roads, and local law enforcement officers, sympathetic to their winemaking neighbors, found ways to run circles around the intruding authorities. For the state’s winemaking families–many of them immigrants from Italy–surviving Prohibition meant facing impossible decisions, whether to give up the idyllic way of life their families had known for generations, or break the law to enable their wine businesses and their livelihood t… More >>
When the Rivers Ran Red: An Amazing Story of Courage and Triumph in America’s Wine Country
The book should be pulled back and re-edited as well as proof-read. The numerous typos, grammatical and punctuation errors, repetitious padding, non-sentences and run-on sentences were so distracting that I only felt relief at the end of Page 200. The author’s passion for the subject and tons of data are much appreciated, but the final product lacks professionalism. I only hope someone performed a fact check.
This was the most enjoyable and informative book I’ve read in a while.
I grew up listening to my grandfather tell stories about how he and his siblings would sit outside on the front porch and watch the ’shiners race their souped-up hot-rods to outrun the Revenuers past his house on the main road from the mountains of NC into the central Piedmont (folks: those are the origins of NASCAR!).
However, I must say I never really considered how the 18th Amendment and the subsequent Volstead Act affected the vineyards of Napa and Sonoma, and that’s a terrible shame. This book taught me another important aspect of the Prohibition story and nightmare.
The author strikes a perfect balance, alternating between a general history of the Temperance movement and Prohibition itself in Washington and nationwide (including some great political intrigue), while telling personal histories (some from interviews, some from memoirs and other books) about the wine families themselves, the criminal element, the oft-necessity of bootlegging just to stay financially solvent, etc. Her text is meticulously researched with copious documentation, which I value highly as a student of History.
Her obvious love of this land shines through in this accounting of its people (largely a first or second-generation immigrant population of patriotic Americans, whether they be workers, bootleggers, or wine-artisans/growers). We leave this reading the richer for having explored her work.
NOT to be missed. FIVE wholehearted stars!
What a great book. Easy to read. Insightful, accurate and at times, heartbreaking. This book shows that banning things generally results in bigger and worse problems in the system. Makes you think about our current bans on drugs and prostitution, most likely legalizing them will put a lot of dealers and politicians out of job, and would end our gang problems! God forbid!
Being interested in wines and in wine growing (and history), I decided to get this book for my husband, since it seemed like something he would be interested in. It was really an excellent book which gives great insight into the prohibition and how it affected vineyards in California. Compelling read that is just packed with drama and history put together! I loved how it explained, in very neutral terms, why the political forces passed prohibition, and how it affected all the families in California. Very, very interesting read that I highly recommend!
Copy was in very good condition. Excellent story and applicable to Sonoma wine industry. US wine buyers should understand why the French say our vines are too young. They did not have the dread disease PROHIBITION followed by the Great Depression followed by WWII during which grape growing and wine makeing was not a “defense industry” and required both groups to fight to save the vineyards of France.