Amazon.com Review
When Louisa and Alex Hargrave bought an old potato farm in 1973 with plans to start a vineyard, they had "no farm experience and little life experience." What they did have was enthusiasm, optimism, a strong relationship, and just enough naivete to attempt what no one else had before managed: to create a viable winery on New York"s Long Island. Though experts said it was impossible, they successfully planted ten thousand vinifera vines and started a venture that lasted 30 years and inspired many others to start wineries in the area.
The Vineyard is Louisa Hargrave's memoir of the endeavor and the price she paid to make her dreams come true.
True pioneers, the Hargraves learned their trade from scratch and raised their children close to the land. Louisa even strapped her babies to her back while working in the fields. Along the way, they encountered many predictable natural obstacles, including foul weather, pestilence, and disease, along with more than their fair share of man-made problems, such as meddlesome neighbors, vindictive bureaucrats, and money shortages. But their life was not all weeding and grafting; they also experienced the glamorous, and often absurd, world of professional wine making, complete with wealthy eccentrics and heavily politicized wine-tasting competitions.
Despite the success of the business, the experience took a heavy toll on her family, and she writes frankly about disappointments and marital problems without distracting from the main storyline. Her breezy tone and lively storytelling skills make the book an enjoyable read even for those with limited knowledge of wine-making. In short, the farm and life experience she gained over the past 30 years is worth passing on. --Shawn Carkonen
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
In 1973, when Hargrave and her husband, Alex, decided to start a winery on Long Island, they were "college-educated suburbanites" with no previous experience in viticulture. Besides having to learn everything about the complicated and physically demanding process of growing grapes and making wine, they made life even more difficult for themselves by deciding to plant Vitis vinifera, the wine grape of Europe that was not supposed to grow on the East Coast of the U.S. In her candid, bittersweet memoir, Hargrave tells how they overcame hurricanes, destructive birds, diseased plants, problems with regulatory agencies, and jealous wine experts who wished them ill to achieve their goal of growing Vitis vinifera and producing award-winning wines. In 1999, she and Alex divorced, and since she couldn't afford to buy out her husband, the Hargrave Vineyard was sold. As she looks back on years of joy as well as hard work, Hargrave presents a colorful picture of life at the vineyard, describing planting and wine making, the manual labor-and how they raised their children. Her discussions of some of the historical and technical aspects of viticulture-the fermentation process; the way the type of wood used for wine barrels affects the taste of the wine-make for engaging reading. Hints of the coming breakup of her marriage embedded in her narrative are effective, but an overlong description of the couple's early years together and an account of the backpacking trip she made to Montana to do some soul-searching about the divorce detract from the main story and mar an otherwise appealing history of a pioneering vineyard.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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