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Violence in the Vineyards

September 25, 2015 by Frances Dinkelspiel Leave a Comment

St. Junipero Serra

On Wednesday, Sept. 23, much of the Catholic world was focused on the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C. Pope Francis, a pope who has come to symbolize the rights of the poor and downtrodden, anointed Junipero Serra a saint. In doing so, the Pope cast light on the brutal history and treatment of Native Americans during the Mission period.

But Californians shouldn’t sit back smugly and think that violence against Indians was just a problem of the Franciscans. Serra, a citizen of Spain, may have started the trend of forcing Indians to work against their will, but the Mexicans and Americans who assumed control over California at different points in the 19^th Century were worse in many ways.

In working on Tangled Vines, the most disturbing part of my research has been the realization that Native Americans paid the highest personal price for the development of the wine business. California wine may now earn international accolades and generate $24.6 billion a year, but the industry was founded on a philosophy of greed and violence.

5 little-known facts about the history of California wine

September 11, 2015 by Frances Dinkelspiel 6 Comments

My forthcoming book, Tangled Vines, focuses on the largest crime involving wine in history: an arson fire that destroyed 4.5 million bottles of wine worth $250 million.

The book also traces the life one of the bottles lost in the fire. It was made in 1875 in a vineyard in Rancho Cucamonga in southern California by my great-great grandfather, Isaias Hellman.

I did a lot of research on the history of California wine for my book and found some fun things.

Here are five little-known facts about California wine:

1) The Franciscan fathers were the first to plant grapes in California. Father Junipero Serra wrote to his bosses in Baja California in the late 18th century and asked that they ship grapevines north. The grapes were planted at Mission San Juan Capistrano near Los Angeles. They were named Mission grapes and became the primary grape used for making wine throughout the 1880s, even though the wine they produced was flat and bland. Historians think the first harvest in California was in 1782.

My new book, Tangled Vines, will be published in October

September 6, 2015 by Frances Dinkelspiel Leave a Comment

I am very excited to announce that my new book, Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California will be published on Oct. 6, 2015 by St. Martin’s Press.

I have been working on this book since late 2009, ever since I wrote a story for the New York Times about an arsonist who destroyed 4.5 million bottles of fine California wine worth more than $250 million. The culprit set fire to a wine warehouse in Vallejo in October 2005. Four years later, he was about to go to trial for the crime.

It was only later that I realized that 175 bottles of wine made by my great great grandfather Isaias Hellman in 1875 in Rancho Cucamonga were burned up in that fire. I had long wanted to write about Hellman’s involvement in wine. For my first book, Towers of Gold, I had examined Hellman’s role in the banking industry, as well as other endeavors, but I had glossed over his role as a wine maker and businessman. I realized in 2010 that I might have my next book topic – an examination of the arson, the largest involving wine in history, with a special focus on that 130-year old bottle and how it came to be.

Resurrecting the dead: the ghosts of past Jewish San Franciscans

November 4, 2014 by Frances Dinkelspiel 3 Comments

An actor dressed as Adolph Sutro, a former mayor of San Francisco

Adolph Sutro, the former mayor of San Francisco, stood by his wife’s grave, a long slab of granite nestled on a slight incline near the top of the Home of Peace cemetery in Colma.

Sutro then pointed to his name, chiseled on a step near his wife’s tomb, and explained that he really wasn’t buried there. He had been disinterred and buried in three different spots. His remains had been moved so many time no one knew were they rested.

Interviewing famous people for Uncharted: The Berkeley Festival of Ideas

October 30, 2014 by Frances Dinkelspiel Leave a Comment

I am interviewing Saru Jayarama here at Uncharted: The Berkeley Festival of Ideas. Photo: Pete Rosos

Two years ago, Berkeleyside, the news site I co-founded and write for, launched Uncharted: The Berkeley Festival of Ideas. The idea was to use the ideas that form Berkeley – notions of social justice, world-class science, food, etc, – as a basis to hold a gathering that would explore them in depth. The second Uncharted happened last weekend, Oct. 24-25, in downtown Berkeley.

Isaias Hellman, Helen Hunt and NBC’s "Who Do You Think You Are?"

March 24, 2012 by Frances Dinkelspiel 1 Comment

I had the opportunity to appear on NBC’s popular genealogy show “Who Do You Think You Are?”with the Academy Award-winning actress Helen Hunt. In searching for her roots, Hunt discovered she was a descendant of William Scholle, a German Jew who came to San Francisco around the time of the Gold Rush and who became a successful insurance broker and investor.

In 1890, Scholle, who was living in New York by that time, was one of a handful of investors allowed to by shares of stock in Isaias Hellman’s Nevada Bank. Hellman had come from Los Angeles to San Francisco to rescue the failing bank and scores of millionaires lined up to buy in. They were convinced that anything Hellman invested in would be successful. Hellman, however, had more demand for stock than he could supply, so he limited sales to family, like Mayer Lehman of Lehman Brothers, and close business associates, like Levi Strauss. Scholle Brothers got about $25,000 worth of stock.

Hunt knew nothing about this and really liked the idea that her great great grandfather and my great great grandfather were business partners and possibly friends.

But she was even more amazed that the Nevada Bank eventually merged with Wells Fargo Bank, now one of the nation’s largest banks.

Click here for a clip of the show. It first aired on NBC on March 23, 2012.

Towers of Gold Named A Best Book of 2009 by Northern California Booksellers

May 6, 2009 by Frances Dinkelspiel 1 Comment

It’s no secret that I love independent bookstores. I am down in Los Angeles and yesterday dropped into the new Diesel Bookstore in Brentwood, even though I had spent the previous two days surrounded by authors and books at the LA Times Festival of Books. Still, I wanted to see what they had and what caught my interest. I almost never pass up a chance to browse in an independent bookstore.

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

April 22, 2009 by Frances Dinkelspiel Leave a Comment

For years I have wanted to attend the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which is easily the largest — and best — book festival on the West Coast. Each year more than 100,000 people go to the UCLA campus to hear more than 450 authors talk about a range of topics.

It has always seemed to far to travel for a weekend. But when I published Towers of Gold, one of the goals I set for myself was to appear at the festival. Well, I am delighted that the organizers asked me, and once the invitation was extended I had no difficulty committing to the 300-mile journey south from San Francisco.

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