Author | Journalist | Speaker
Frances Dinkelspiel and Gary Wayne standing in front of their home, October 1991
As smoke swirled above me and blotted out the October sun and sirens filled the air, I lay flat on my back on Ashby Avenue near College, my hands pressing down on my lower stomach. I had just discovered two days earlier that I was pregnant with my first child, and I was so overcome with nausea that I couldn’t stay standing.
It has been a harrowing time in the Bay Area and in Napa and Sonoma counties. On Sunday, Oct. 8 a wildfire broke out in Calistoga and quickly grew, fed by 70-mph-winds and fed by tinder dry trees and grasses. Bu 3 a.m. it had swept through urban neighborhoods in Santa Rosa. At the same time, other fires broke out. At one point there were 17 different fires raging in the state. By the time they were put out, about 40 people had died.
Premier Cru’s John Fox Photo: American Greed
Every since I wrote Tangled Vines, I have become somewhat of a specialist on wine fraud. It’s not that hard to do given that wine crime is a growing industry. Every week, it seems, some merchant or wine maker or thief tries a new way to steal wine and sell it on the black or gray market.
In 2015 and 2016, I wrote many stories for Berkeleyside, the website I co-founded, on John Fox, who ran one of the world’s largest wine Ponzi schemes. He ran a fine wine store in Berkeley named Premier Cru and did a brisk business selling wine futures: i.e. wines still aging in barrels.
I am delighted to announce that the city of Whittier in Los Angeles County has selected Tangled Vines as its Whittier Reads selection for 2017. (As has the city of Benicia, but more on that later.) I will be delivering a lecture on April 7 and then attend a dinner put on by the Whittier Library Foundation later that evening. The Foundation is a major sponsor of the libraries. It raises about $600,000 a year to fund the library programming, which includes Whittier Reads.
In February, I had the honor of serving as the featured speaker at the HarvEst Distinguished Women Lecture Series at UC Berkeley. As part of that, I participated in an interview for the series “Interview with History,” with host Harry Kreisler. Here is that interview, which is an hour long. We discuss Tangled Vines, my first book, Towers of Gold, and the founding of Berkeleyside. I also talk about my influences growing up.
It’s New Year’s Eve, and when I reflect on 2015 I realize I have much to be grateful for, particularly in my professional life. There were definitely some sad moments – my stepfather died at 92, I had to cover the death of six young adults who plunged to their deaths from a rotted balcony in Berkeley, among other things.
But Tangled Vines went out into the world and was greeted more enthusiastically than I ever expected. For some reason, I was very nervous about the reception for this book, more nervous than before my first book, Towers of Gold, was released. I doubted that the story was sufficiently significant and worried that no one would want to read about this huge arson fire and my quest to understand the significance of losing 175 bottles of Port made by my great-great grandfather in 1875.
It probably was second book syndrome. The first time you write and publish a book you have no idea how it will change your life and how it makes you a “public” person about whom people both praise and criticize. But I am not complaining. It turned out well. Here are some of the highlights of 2015 :
I got the call all author’s dream about.
In my case, it was an email. On Monday, Nov. 16, my editor at St. Martins Press, Michael Flamini, sent me a message.
“Tangled Vines” is #10 on the NYT monthly crime bestsellers list!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yahoo! We can now say, on any reprint and the paperback, “New York Times Bestseller”!!!!!
He then sent me the link.
I was flabbergasted. I knew Tangled Vines had been selling briskly in the Bay Area. (It made the San Francisco Chronicle/NCIBA bestseller list for the week ending Oct. 25, 2015. But to get on the NYT list, a book has to sell well throughout the United States. (I think. The methodology is a tightly guarded secret). I had no idea my book was selling elsewhere.
I am standing at Vineyard Plaza in Rancho Cucamonga, the site of the winery that served Cucamonga Winery for more than 100 years.
I have been having a great time touring around talking about Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist on the Vineyards of California. I am in Los Angeles as I write this, taking a breather after talking at The Homestead Museum in the City of Industry, the Galleano Winery in Mira Loma in Riverside County, the Huntington Library in San Marino, and the Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles. In between I had a newspaper and radio interview! I am not complaining – far from it – but tired since all those events were crammed into three days.