When the Rivers Ran Red: An Amazing Story of Courage and Triumph in America's Wine Country

Sosnowski, Vivienne

ISBN 10: 0230605745 / ISBN 13: 9780230605749

Published by Palgrave Macmillan, 2009

About this Item

First Edition-First Printing with full number line to 1- Minor shelf wear to DJ- Book is extremely tight and unmarked-" An account of how Prohibition affected wine-growers in California. "When Prohibition took effect in 1919, three months after one of the greatest California grape harvests of all time, violence and chaos descended on Northern California. Federal agents spilled thousands of gallons of wine in the rivers and creeks, gun battles erupted on dark country roads. . For the state's winemaking families - many of them immigrants from Italy - surviving Prohibition meant facing impossible decisions, whether to give up the idyllic way of life their families had known for generations, or break the law to enable their wine businesses and their livelihood to survive." Map, notes, bibliography, index. xx, 230 pp.

Seller Inventory # 15405

Bibliographic Details

• Title: When the Rivers Ran Red: An Amazing Story of Courage and Triumph in America's Wine Country
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0230605745
• ISBN 13: 9780230605749
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: New
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

About this title

Synopsis

Today, millions of  people around the world enjoy California's legendary wines, unaware that 90 years ago the families who made these wines--and in many cases still do – turned to struggle and subterfuge to save the industry we now cherish. When Prohibition took effect in 1919, three months after one of the greatest California grape harvests of all time, violence and chaos descended on Northern California. Federal agents spilled thousands of gallons of wine in the rivers and creeks, gun battles erupted on dark country roads, and local law enforcement officers, sympathetic to their winemaking neighbors, found ways to run circles around the intruding authorities. For the state's winemaking families--many of them immigrants from Italy--surviving Prohibition meant facing impossible decisions, whether to give up the idyllic way of life their families had known for generations, or break the law to enable their wine businesses and their livelihood to survive. Including moments of both desperation and joy, Sosnowski tells the inspiring story of how ordinary people fought to protect to a beautiful and timeless culture in the lovely hills and valleys of now-celebrated wine country.

About the Author

Vivienne Sosnowski has been an editorial director of newspapers, including the Washington, D.C., Examiner and the San Francisco Examiner. A gifted photographer whose portraits of wine country pioneers were the genesis of this book, she divides her time between a home in the vineyard county of Sonoma and another in Vancouver, Canada.