Quirky, informative and extremely readable, with enlightening chapters on everything from the birth of claret to the rise of the New World. Tim Atkin, on the first edition.

    In this book, the writer of the series sets out to capture the rugged beauty of the haunts of Compo, Clegg, Seymour Utterthwaite and Nora Batty, from the warm glow of Sid's Cafe to the bleak light on the wind-torn and isolated farms with thick-coated horses braced against the elements on steep hillsides. The author uses entries from Clegg's wry journal to accompany the photographs by Paul Barker, who has lived near Holmfirth all but eight years of his life.

    Engagingly written, exhaustively researched, and rich in detail, this book describes how Prohibition devastated the wine industry, the conditions of renewal after Repeal, the various New Deal measures that affected wine, and the early markets and methods. Thomas Pinney goes on to examine the effects of World War II and how the troubled postwar years led to the great wine boom of the late 1960s, the spread of winegrowing to almost every state, and its continued expansion to the present day.The history of wine in America is, in many ways, the history of America and of American enterprise in microcosm. Pinney's sweeping narrative comprises a lively cast of characters that includes politicians, bootleggers, entrepreneurs, growers, scientists, and visionaries. Pinney relates the development of winemaking in states such as New York and Ohio; its extension to Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas, and other states; and its notable successes in California, Washington, and Oregon. He is the first to tell the complete and connected story of the rebirth of the wine industry in California, now one of the most successful winemaking regions in the world.