This bears a lot of similarity to The Vineyard

books:


	• At Home in the Vineyard: Cultivating a Winery, an Industry, and a Life Susan Sokol Blosser University of California Press, 2006 - 259 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

This bears a lot of similarity to The Vineyard

This book, down to the "pioneer" theme,and dustjacket synopsis, seems to owe a significant debt to Louisa Thomas Hargrave's The Vineyard, which covered similar territory at a similar time on Long Island's North Fork.

Sour grapes? No way!

Well, except when the weather deals them an unwelcome clout....

I live smack dab in the middle of wine country (California) myself, but am no vintner. And it happens I took a scouting trip to the McMinnville vicinity in Oregon last year, thinking it a prospective new home. So, when I spied the lush, green-vined cover of AT HOME IN THE VINEYARD, I was hooked and had to investigate one woman's (and her family's) experiences establishing and nurturing grapes from plant to bottle.

Susan Sokol Blosser writes a chatty, wide-ranging history beginning in late 1970, when she gave birth to her first son and her then-husband Bill "closed the deal on our first piece of vineyard land." She traces the stages of the vineyard and the winery that was built later with an easy, honest style that disarms and charms. It is soon apparent that this woman is an engine of energy. During the years her three children are small, she mainly toils in the vineyard, tilling, planting, picking, spraying, fertilizing, etc. But she also finds time to join the school board and various associations. She also teaches briefly at a McMinnville college. Later, she is twice a candidate for state public office, once losing by a questionable "whisker." As the family wine business expands, so does the wine industry in Oregon. Susan and Bill do their part to uphold and promote the burgeoning reputation Oregon wine slowly acquires -- particularly its Pinot Noir which grows full-bodied in the cooler Northwest climate. In 1990, Susan takes over from Bill as president of their winery and slowly refinances and then gains full ownership of the enterprise. She changes winemakers to improve quality. She travels widely and often to see distributors and explore new markets. She modernizes the labels on their bottles and gains national attention with a blended white wine. She deals with lawsuits and legislative hurdles. She also decides to shift to organic operations and embraces sustainable agriculture. Then, in the early years of the new millennium, she decides she will focus on gradually handing over the reins of power to the son and daughter who have decided to follow their parents into the family business.

While the author relates the chronology of the vineyard and winery she owns and manages, she doesn't ignore the personal side. AT HOME IN THE VINEYARD includes some cute anecdotes about farm pets, and it mentions family concerns such as her father's Alzheimer's without dwelling on them. At one point, I wondered how in the world anyone could juggle so many balls in the air -- family, business, many friendships, and political activism. Something seemed bound to tumble. Well, something did, and the author unflinchingly, and without wallowing, tackles the changes in her life after the children grew up and left the nest.

For anyone who has ever considered starting up a winery, AT HOME IN THE VINEYARD illustrates the kind of commitment and fortitude such an undertaking requires. But even if you aren't planning on being the entrepreneur that all the members of the Sokol Blosser family are; if you seek stories about rural life, want to know more about the Willamette Valley, or are interested in one outspoken and undaunted woman's adventures as a corporate executive, then snag a copy of AT HOME IN THE VINEYARD and -- maybe with a glass of wine in hand -- imbibe it cover to cover.

for more information click here

Minor Classic

This is a brilliant book written by a highly intelligent and unusual woman. It is probably headed towards becoming a minor classic. Like all great books it is not easy to classify. At its most superficial it purports to be a history of the Oregon wine industry, a subject of limited interest. At another level it is a business autobiography by a woman who heads a successful Oregon winery, a subject of slightly wider appeal. Yet both levels simply form a frame to answer more eternal questions: who am I and how did I get to be who I am? At that deeper level the book may come to have a more lasting life.

Emerging into adulthood in the early 1970's the author and her husband bought land in Oregon and planted grape vines which ultimately led to the Sokol-Blosser Winery. That they were in their early twenties with no business experience, no knowledge of the wine industry, and no knowledge of agricultural did not then occur to them as an insurmountable obstacle. Nearly forty years later after taking over the business from her husband, surviving the disinvestment of her brothers, droughts, rain storms, a volcanic eruption, separation from business partners, 20% interest rates, three children, a three-legged cat, recalcitrant geese, a mid-life divorce, love unexpectedly found anew, success in business and failure in politics, the author recounts with great honesty the trials and tribulations of a woman's life in the second half of the 20th century as mother, wife, and CEO.

While the author ascribes the emerging success of her business mainly to determination and some luck, her intelligence and judgment shine through and provide a more convincing explanation. That no rancor invades the author's tale, despite many instances where bitterness and acrimony would be a natural response, suggests that her skill and judgment in negotiating difficult situations may have counted more heavily than simple determination. The author's seriousness is often leavened with humor. It is a book well worth reading.

for more information click here

Cheers!

Pour a glass of Evolution Wine and kick back with this entertaining memoir. If the technical aspects of starting and maintaining a business is not a favorite reading topic there is still plenty of life drama going on that is highly readable and easy to relate to. Having lived in Oregon for 22 years and seen (and tasted) the state's wine industry mature I was fascinated with finding out the inside story. If you live in Oregon you might enjoy a few "I was there" moments when the author describes the wonderful concert series in her vineyard. Ah yes...Johnny Mathis under the full moon. Wonderful memory, wonderful book.

for more information click here

Speaks to the heart . . .

I found Hargrave's autobiography pompous and dull, but Susan Sokol Blosser's account of building a life in the Dundee Hills of Oregon speaks to me on many levels--as a woman working in the wine industry, a woman working with her husband, a woman running her own business, and a mother. Susan turns her trials into triumphs and exercises a sense of humor along the way. From the Great Goose Experiment to the day her tearful son rides his bike all the way to school by himself, this is a story that will transport you into "The Life" of owning a vineyard and winery, with a judicial salting of reality and romance.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2

This moving, evocative memoir, woven with lyrical descriptions of the sights and smells of vineyard life, tells the inspirational story of one woman's journey to success in an industry run mostly by men. At Home in the Vineyard, filled with colorful characters and unexpected experiences, brings a local rural community vividly alive as Oregon wine pioneer and industry icon Susan Sokol Blosser recounts how she fell in love with a vineyard, learned how to run it, and ultimately achieved her vision of producing Pinot Noirs to rival those of Burgundy. An intimate family story, At Home in the Vineyard also gives a candid insider's view of Oregon's flourishing wine industry.
Sokol Blosser begins her narrative in the 1970s, when, as a young, idealistic wife, she helped her husband make his wild idea of planting a vineyard in the Dundee Hills become a reality. By the book's final pages, she has become president of Sokol Blosser Winery, widely respected for gaining national visibility and for producing world-class wines, especially the elusive Pinot Noir. Along the way, Sokol Blosser tells how she learned to do everything from driving a tractor and managing a picking crew to selling Oregon wine in Manhattan. She also shares some special accomplishments: how she instituted values of environmental sustainability and social responsibility at the vineyard, integrated family and business life, and successfully brought the second generation on board.

for more information click here

hot