A Tale of Two Valleys: Wine, Wealth and the Battle for the Good Life in Napa and Sonoma
by Alan Deutschman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Alan DeutschmanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-05-11
ISBN: 0767907043
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Broadway
Book Reviews of A Tale of Two Valleys: Wine, Wealth and the Battle for the Good Life in Napa and Sonoma
Book Review: A fast-food book about a gourmet subject.
Summary: 3 Stars
Alan Deutschman's "A Tale of Two Valleys" is a quick, reasonably entertaining read, but as someone who loves the Napa and Sonoma Valleys and visits them a couple times a year, I was hoping for more. Some reviewers have taken Deutschman to task for factual errors; it's plain he misspelled the name of California wine industry pioneer Agoston Haraszthy (though that might have been an editing or printing error), and he may well have totally mischaracterized Haraszthy's life, and other things in the book as well. In any case, I had a different problem with "A Tale of Two Valleys": Deutschman tells the story in the first person, thus making himself a character in the book. That in itself is not a sin--so did John Berendt in "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil"--but, unlike Berendt, it's painfully obvious Deutschman remains on the outside of Napa and Sonoma, looking in. To be blunt, whereas Berendt is a storyteller and an empath, Deutschman is a reporter and a solipsist. He introduces a bewildering number of characters in his tale of political and financial infighting in the Wine Country, but he doesn't come close to making any of them memorable, with the single exception of Maria "Ditty" Vella, a cheese broker from an old-line Sonoma family and an outspoken advocate of slow food, slow growth and respect for the environment. There's no equivalent here to Jim Williams, Danny Hansford or Lady Chablis; I weep for the loss of what Berendt could have made of genuine characters like Bob Cannard Sr., the chicken historian of Sonoma, and Ken Brown, the New York cabbie turned Sonoma hippie activist. Deutschman is obviously enthusiastic about all the wonderful wines he drinks and gourmet meals he eats, but--except for one dinner with established winemaking families, planned expressly to keep out the parvenus--he doesn't give us much of a feel for them. The stories of the parallel battles over the futures of Napa and Sonoma are intrinsically interesting, and Deutschman tells them cleanly, swiftly, professionally. But it's too bad that this potentially gourmet tale is the literary equivalent of a bag of Cheetos--tasty, quickly consumed, and quickly forgotten.
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