Napa [Paperback]

James Conaway (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1992

A tour of California's premier wine country introduces readers to the family who inherited and then lost historic Inglenook, winemaker Francis Ford Coppola, the Mondavis, and more. Reprint. NYT. K.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Conaway ( The Kingdom in the Country ), here tells the history of Napa Valley wines and the development of wine-drinking in America. He relates the stories of those colorful individuals who settled in the California valley for its beauty and quiet, but were drawn by the favorable conditions into the competition to make a better wine. His other tales are of "development" itself, which has spoiled and polluted the area's natural beauty, and has pitted neighbor against neighbor in a political struggle to stop "progress" and prevent corporate takeovers of the wine industry. A tale of violence this is not, but a little creeps into some of the stories, mortals being less perfectible than wine. This lively history should have wide appeal. Photos.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Less than 30 years ago, oak trees claimed more Napa Valley soil than grapevines. A few winemakers who had held on through Prohibition and some newcomers, deemed eccentric by most, had great faith in the potential preeminence of Napa wines. They planted grapes unknown to the Valley--Chardonnay, Cabernet--and within 25 years, Napa wines had come to rival those of France and Italy. Former Washington Post reporter Conaway ( The Kingdom in the Country, LJ 10/15/87) carefully profiles Napa's visionaries, telling their personal stories and revealing the unlikely sources of their inspiration, some of it the stuff of fevered historical romance fiction. He also documents the 1970s invasion of tourism and the big liquor companies. His book is readable and authoritative, if somewhat exhausting. Another history of Napa will not be needed for many years.
- Tim Zindel, Hastings Coll. of the Law, San Francisco
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Quill Press (April 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380715996
• ISBN-13: 978-0380715992
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,112,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James (Jim) Conaway grew up in Memphis but lived in Europe for several years before moving to Washington, D.C. A former Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford University, he's the author of two novels and nine books of non-fiction, the most recent being "Vanishing America: In Pursuit of Our Elusive Landscapes", described by writer Tracy Kidder as "an enthralling, lovely tribute to a lot of what is precious in America."
His previous book, "The Far Side of Eden", was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year in 2002 and a sequel to his best-selling "Napa: The Story of an American Eden", described in the New York Times Book Review as "an important story, emblematic of our time."
His other books include the memoir, "Memphis Afternoons", and "The Kingdom in the Country", a personal journey in a van through the public lands of the American West and described by Stegner as "a very lively book... He got into places and activities that most westerners never even get close to." Author Jim Harrison called it "a wonderful, well-considered evocation of the New West."
Jim's first novel, "The Big Easy", is based on his experiences as a police reporter in New Orleans; his second novel, "World's End", is a Louisiana coastal saga ofr politics and crime described as "a combination of All the King's Men" and "The Godfather." He has just completed a new novel set in California.
Jim has written for many magazines, including The New York Times Magazine, Atlantic, Harper's, The New Republic, Gourmet, Smithsonian, and National Geographic Traveler. He divides his time between piedmont Virginia and Washington.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very informative book - an update would be welcome, April 2, 2000

By 

E55 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Napa (Paperback)

Napa is a fine book for anyone interested in wines in general and in the ones produced in Napa Valley in particular. The beginning of the book is really the best part. With a great deal of interesting details, the author recalls the beginning of wine production in the area. Reading the story of the pionners who settled there in the beginning of the century is really fascinating. The description of the lives of great characters such as Gustave Niebaum, Georges de Latour or John Daniel are really well written. The second part of the book is less interesting. It focusses too much on political battles in the late 80's and the author has clearly chosen his camp and shows too much the people that he does not like. It would be great if the author would suppress the last chapters and write about what happened in the 90's. Napa Valley has changed, new producers have emerged and an up-dated version of Napa would be a great gift for all wine lovers.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars POLITICS ECLIPSE THE STORY OF WINE, February 29, 2000

By 

Scott Carpenter (Newport Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Napa (Paperback)

Conaway's Napa is subtitled, "The Story of an American Eden." Conaway has done his research in uncovering the history of the valley and the origin of its now world-class wineries. However, readers who are looking for a romantic evocation of this "American Eden" may be disappointed. Conaway devotes more space to land use issues, corporate politics and social history than to the development of the vintner's art in the Napa. The story is told through a series of short chapters relating to many of the people who have had made an impact on the valley. This provides a detailed history, but the author does little to provide much synthesis for the many narratives. The book begins with the arrival of Jack and Jamie Davies and their renovation of the Shramsberg winery in the early 60's, but the last several chapters deal almost exlusively with the political battles between the big vintners, portrayed as greedy and selfish, and the slow-growth advocates, the story's idealistic heroes. The conflicts between growth versus conservation and art versus commerce do provide some interesting drama and are necessary elements of the story of Napa Valley. But the essence of Napa is wine and the good life, and this story gets lost in the politics of Conaway's version of Napa. Read the book for the interesting history of Napa's wine industry and the wealth of historical detail, but understand that the author is more conerned with how the beauty of Napa can be preserved than with the romance of the vine.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars It's sleaze, but it's FUN sleaze ..., February 11, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Napa (Paperback)

The author, a free-lance wine writer not widely regarded as a heavyweight, has done a National Enquirer treatment of Napa and its leading wine personalities, reprinting a lot of rumors, quoting a lot of unnamed sources. Never mind. It's a helluva read. Just don't take it too seriously.