Customer Reviews

A Wine Journey along the Russian River

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. . . . which flows into the Pacific Ocean north of San Fransisco, is a marvelously varied strip of wine country. The river itself, as author Steve Heimoff makes clear, cuts its way through many different wine areas, and so this geographical feature--rather than winemaking itself--constitutes the unifying theme of the book.
This book which is filled with the sense of place, could be just another great American travelogue. But contrary to expectation, Heimoff abandons the river for a chapter on clones and the politics of American Viticultural Areas.
Now before your eyes glaze over, I have to agree with Heimoff that the business of creating new grape varieties and cloning them may be at the heart of the improvement in American wine for the next several decades. He is one of the first popular wine writers to recognize this and explain it all in layman's terms.
These two achievements-making the region come alive and explaining the mystery of the clones, make this a must-read for developing students and lovers of wine.

Steve Heimoff has written a wine book, a geology text, and a history lesson all in one volume. A superb treatment of several complex subjects, he writes with an intense love of his subjects....and has obviously spent an enormous amount of time researching each facet of it. It should be a must for anyone interested in California wine.

This is a delightful book that brings Sonoma County, its wines, and winemakers to life. Heimoff is one of the fairest and most influential wine critics publishing today (Wine Enthusiast, his own blog), yet he is never pretentious. In this book, as in so many of his columns, he simply expresses the joy of wine, its place, and its people.

The book's story arc involves an intermittent canoe trip down the Russian River. Along the way, Heimoff describes the geology, the land, the vineyards, wines, winemakers, and a bit of history. It made the Russian River Valley seem much more personal, and inspired me to visit some of the producers I had missed before. I also dream of following a similar trip and seeing places such as the Rochioli vineyard from the river.

One of the best passages in the book features winemakers doing a blind tasting of their own wines. I won't describe the results, but they were educational and amusing ... and I often read two of the key paragraphs when I host wine tastings wine friends.

If you enjoy Sonoma wines and would like to understand more about their place and producers, this is a wonderful book.

This is a terrific read that provides an entertaining discussion of the various forces (geologic, weather, business and personalities) that shape the Russian River region and its wine.