Customer Reviews

A Companion to California Wine: An Encyclopedia of Wine and Winemaking from the Mission Period to the Present

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I am the librarian at the Sonoma County Wine Library, and I have known Charles Sullivan for some years. His newest work will probably be THE one volume reference on California wine from now on. In concise and informative entries, Sullivan encompasses the whole of California's rich wine heritage. He covers all the varietals and most of the wineries A to Z. His writing is insightful, dispassionate and fluid, and his research is superb.

The importance of Bo Simmond's praise for this book on Amazon can not be exaggerated; there is no better library of wine books in the United States. Sullivan himself has studied wine and its history in California for over 30 years. He has a clear and concise style, and his text is well documented and reliable.

Sullivan has contributed his California wine history database to winefiles.org. It contains over 30,000 citations to primary sources in California's wine history, including books, newspapers, trade journals and other periodicals.

In addition to "A Companion to California Wine', Sullivan is the author of:

"Napa Wine: A History from Mission Days to Present";

"WINES AND WINEMAKERS OF THE SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS" (Los Gatos: D. R. Bennion Trust, 1992);

"Like Modern Edens: Winegrowing in Santa Clara Valley and Santa Cruz Mountains 1798-1981"; and

"Zinfandel: A History of a Grape and Its Wine" (California Studies in Food and Culture, 10).

Sullivan continues to write about California wine, and has written over a hundred articles on the subject, which have been published in leading wine periodicals. "A Companion" is a great place to explore his work and California wine history in general.

Robert C. Ross 2008

A friend told me about this book, published by the University of California. Very good resource and a recommended read if you're into wine. Nicely published.

This lean volume is everything you'd want in a companion: Lively, intoxicating, and beautiful in appearance; her lean, supple prose swells provocatively beneath the sheer, black jacket that clings suggestively to this tight, curvaceaous body of work. But she is more than a sensual treat! Her wit, though not of the highest order, gives some delight as well and one would be proud to appear with this companion under one's arm even at a Mensa gathering.

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