Napa: The Story of an American Eden
by James Conaway

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Book Reviews of Napa: The Story of an American Eden

Book Review: Eden Goes to Hell
Summary: 5 Stars

succeeded.

Napa wines won a famous 1976 tasting (the French were apoplectic), mightily
boosting reputations and profit potential. Soon, bottom-line worshippers
corporatios marginalized mere sweat-equity farmers in muddy boots and
pickup trucks, moving James Conaway to record the loss of innocence in his
best-seller "Napa" (1990). Now his fine sequel--told through heroes and
villains--finds America's Eden in crisis.

Tsunami tourism (5 million visitors a year) is bad, the new-wave investors
worse: dot-commers, lawyers, real-estate moguls and others skilled in
pulling fortunes from the air and convinced of their right to do as they
pleased, the law be damned. Vulgar McMansions profane lovely hillsides,
spoiling the grand views for everyone else. Arrivistes craving the cachet
of their names on top-dollar labels spend recklessly on vineyards dozered
and dynamited into ever-steepening slopes. These grow fine grapes, but
their runoff muddies Napa's river and threatens its watershed and wildlife.
The wines themselves are obscured between [price]"monster cabernets" and
"fruit bombs" and cheap stuff--often not even made from Napa grapes--meant
to strip-mine tourists. Pretentiousness thrives: Napa Valley now has an
"Office of Protocol."

Existing legal controls might have limited damage had county officials
bestirred themselves. They don't, and so zealots force the issue: Wine Guys
vs. Enviros. Reasonable people capable of compromise can't stop the slide
into unproductive rancor. Fulminative rhetoric draws neo-Prohibitionists
attacking "alcohol farms," ex-urbanites utterly ignorant of agriculture,
and radicals demanding an end to all local regulations, even seeking
exemption from state environmental laws. In the background real-estate
developers dry-wash their hands at the prospect of turning incredibly
valuable vineyards into astronomically valuable housing lots.

The result is one of those "mother of" lawsuits. It would be unfair to say
who wins because Conaway, a brisk and vivid writer, maintains suspense to
the end. But it is fair to say it accomplishes little and may mean ruin
later on.

Eden--it's not a pretty picture.

Summary of Napa: The Story of an American Eden

Entrepreneurship Books

• Books > Subjects > Business & Investing > Small Business & Entrepreneurship
• Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Drinks & Beverages > Wine > Wine & Winemaking
• History > Americas > United States > State & Local