To look at the reviews of Tangled Vines, click here.
04-23 – Vinfamous, the podcast of The Wine Enthusiast, interviews Frances for an episode on the $250 arson fire at Wines Central warehouse.
“The Spark that Destroyed $250 Million Worth of Wine.”
03-28-23- KCRB interviews Frances about the death of Mark Anderson.
06-10-22 – I announced my departure after 13 years from Cityside/Berkeleyside/The Oaklandside.
10-25-21 – The New York Times California Today newsletter interviewed Frances about People’s Park in Berkeley.
10-21-21 – Frances appeared on KQED’s Forum to talk about the 30th anniversary of the 1991 Oakland-Berkeley firestorm. Her first-person account of the day appeared on Berkeleyside.
10-20-21- Frances talked to the members of the San Francisco Public Relations Roundtable about Cityside and the threats to local news.
9.7.21 – Frances is interviewed in the California Sun newsletter. When asked which three people dead or alive she would invite for dinner, she said IW Hellman, her great-great grandfather (so many unanswered questions!), Julia Morgan and Dorothea Lange.
5.3.21 – Tangled Vines made it to the list of Best Wine Audiobooks of All Time
I’m happy to announce that my book, “Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California,” made it to BookAuthority’s Best Wine Audiobooks of All Time.
BookAuthority collects and ranks the best books in the world, and it is a great honor to get this kind of recognition. Thank you for all your support!
11.14.18 — Frances’ story “One Day, One Night: The Fuse that Lit the Battles of Berkeley,” was awarded a prize in long-form journalism from the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. The piece, written for Berkeleyside, is an oral history of the day right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopolous came to UC Berkeley. A cadre of black-clad protestors rushed Sproul Plaza, throwing incendiary devices, breaking windows and causing havoc. It was the first of 11 raucous protests in Berkeley pitting the right against the left in 2017. Read about it here.
04.20.18 — Diablo Magazine names Frances a “game-changing” woman, one of seven women who “are rewriting the rules.” Click here.
04.12.18 — I am really excited to announce that Berkeleyside, the news site I co-founded with Lance Knobel and Tracey Taylor, just raised $1 million from our readers. We are the first news site in the country to use a Direct Public Offering, a stock offering, to raise capital. The San Francisco Chronicle wrote about it, and we explained it on Berkeleyside as well.
Frances’s Feb. 24 talk to the Friends of the College of the Desert Library got a write-up in The Desert Sun. Read it here.
Paul Kilduff of The East Bay Monthly did an interview of me that touched on my news website, Berkeleyside, whether we should have any sympathy for wealthy wine collectors who get snookered out of money or wine, and the time I appeared on the American Greed television show to talk about John Fox, who filched about $45 million from his customers at the Berkeley store, Premier Cru.
11.26.17 – The city of Claremont in Southern California has selected Tangled Vines as its “On the Same Page” selection for 2017. The annual citywide reading program, now in its 10th year, is sponsored by the Friends of the Claremont Library. “The idea is to engage as many people as possible in a discussion of one book as the basis for a common experience and for the pleasure of reading,” according to the library’s website. Claremont is almost next door to Rancho Cucamonga, where much of Tangled Vines is set, which is probably why the book was selected. (See the photo for the cute sign they made to advertise the book.) The cities of Whittier and Benicia also selected Tangled Vines as their one city, one read book.
11.16.17: Frances’ articles on John Fox and the $55 million Ponzi scheme he ran out of Premier Cru, his Berkeley wine shop, won a first-place award from the San Francisco Press Club. Berkeleyside, the news site Frances co-founded, also won an “Overall Excellence” award. Read about the awards here.
08.07.17: Frances is featured in an episode of the television show, American Greed, that focuses on Berkeley wine retailer John Fox. Frances wrote extensively about Fox and his business, Premier Cru, for both Berkeleyside and the Daily Beast. Fox was convicted in 2016 in a wine Ponzi scheme where he stole about $20 million from his clients. He spent almost $1 million of that on online dates. “I definitely think John Fox was a sex addict,” Frances says in the episode. Fox is serving a 6.5-year sentence in federal prison.
04.17:17: The city of Whitter has selected Tangled Vines as its Whittier Reads 2017 selection. Frances will deliver a lecture, to be followed by a dinner with a wine theme. The Whittier Reads committee has also arranged a slew of lectures and tastings as a way to explore the book, including a lecture by the Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted Mark Anderson.
12.22.16: Tangled Vines (paperback version) has been on the San Francisco Chronicle and NCIBA bestseller list for seven weeks.
Frances and her Berkeleyside co-worker, Emilie Raguso, won an award from the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for their comprehensive coverage of homelessness in Berkeley.
Tangled Vines will be released in paperback on Oct. 18, 2016
Wine Enthusiast magazine recommends Tangled Vines as a way to “elevate your summer reading list.”
Tangled Vines is now available as an audiobook. Audible has just released the 9-hour 33-minute tape read by Dina Pearlman. You can purchase it here.
I am happy to announce that Tangled Vines has been nominated for a Northern California Book award in the non-fiction category. (My previous book, Towers of Gold, was also a finalist in 2009).
The East Bay Times wrote about Tangled Vines to advance my appearance at the Oakland Public Library on May 3, 2016.
I did an hour-long TV interview with UC Berkeley Professor Harry Kreisler as part of my appearance as the HarvEst lecturer at Cal. We discuss my family history, writing, and the creation of Berkeleyside.
Newsweek magazine takes an in-depth look at Tangled Vines and the rise of wine crime and fraud in the work. The reporter even visits Mare Island to see where the arson fire happened.
Food & Wine magazine names Tangled Vines as one of the best wine books of 2015.
The Washington Post names Tangled Vines as one of the top books to give in the 2015 holiday season. Dave McIntyre, the paper’s wine writers, said it is “the most engrossing and engaging book about Napa Valley” since James Conaway’s two-volume saga. (Published in 2002).
The Wall Street Journal names Tangled Vines “one of the best books for wine lovers.”
KQED’s Bay Area Bites names Tangled Vines to its list of 10 great food books from 2015.
The San Jose Mercury News puts Tangled Vines on its list of 5 best wine reads.
Collectors Weekly used Tangled Vines as a way to take a deeper look at the California Wine Association, the monopoly that controlled 80% of the production of wine in the state before Prohibition. Dec. 11, 2105.
Christopher Chan of Seattle’s Happy Hour Radio recommends Tangled Vines as a holiday pick (at 43:34 mark)
Hear a podcast of my Dec. 3 interview on KQED Forum with Michael Krasny
“Tangled Vines” explores wine, the pride of Cucamonga – Inland Bulletin, Nov. 24, 2015
Tangled Vines makes the New York Times Bestseller List! Nov. 16, 2015
Wine, Crime and a Jewish Financier – The Forward – Nov. 8, 2015
Native Americans gave their blood to make wine in early Los Angeles – radio interview with Off-Ramp – Nov. 2, 2015
Stolen Wine, a Fire, and Wine History up in Flames – An interview with Napa Broadcasting – Oct. 12, 2015
Tangled Vines makes the San Francisco Chronicle/Northern California Independent Bookseller Association bestseller list for week ending Oct. 25!
Leah Garchik of the San Francisco Chronicle takes a look at Tangled Vines, Oct. 18, 2015.
“Dinkelspiel dips into the dark side of wine history in ‘Tangled Vines,’” Contra Costa Times, Oct. 13, 2015.
“New book documents ‘largest wine arson in the world,'” St. Helena Star, Oct 12, 2015
Interview with Modern Notion (podcast)
Interview magazine interviews Dinkelspiel about Tangled Vines in article titled “Wines and Misdemeanors.”
“Bay Area journalist pens new book about the crimes of Mark Anderson,” Marin Scope, Oct. 8, 2015.
Tangled Vines by Frances Dinkelspiel, Eat Drink Films
Elaine Petrocelli, the owner of Book Passage bookstore, calls Tangled Vines “mesmerizing” and includes it in her “Elaine’s Picks,” for October 2015.
St. Martins Press will publish Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California on Oct. 6, 2015.
I am pleased to announce that I have received a writing fellowship to the 2013 Napa Valley Wine Writers’ Symposium. Now in it’s ninth year, the Symposium brings together experienced and aspiring wine writers every February for a three-day conference at the beautiful Meadowood Resort. In addition to lectures, seminars on wine tasting, and visit to various wineries, participants get to taste some of the best wine produced by Napa Valley vintners. My fellowship is sponsored by the Hess Collection, an amazing winery on Mt. Veeder Road. In a coincidence, my family used to own property right next door and we spent many happy hours wandering through the Hess vineyards.
Photo by Liz Hafalia/SF Chronicle
On January 6, 2013, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article called “Frances Dinkelspiel’s Favorite Things,” by Louise Rafkin.
“Some of my favorite things are now just memories,” says journalist and author Frances Dinkelspiel. Her house is perched high above Berkeley, surrounded by luscious greenery. It’s hard to remember this was a bleak, charred scar in the aftermath of the 1991 Oakland fire.
Dinkelspiel’s first home on the site burned just a year after her family moved in. “We lost everything,” she says. “Letters, photos and even the family cat.”
Despite that monumental loss, Dinkelspiel, 53, says the tragedy was also strangely cathartic. Rebuilding happened quickly; within two years she was again looking out onto Claremont Canyon from huge picture windows. In the distance, there’s a sliver of blue bay. In this new, more modern home, furnishings are sparse; it’s evident that here the emphasis is on the life of the mind.
Continue reading here.
On March 23, 2012, Frances and Isaias Hellman were featured on NBC’s popular genealogy show, “Who Do You Think You Are?” In the show, Academy-Award winning actress Helen Hunt traces her roots back to Gold Rush San Francisco, Isaias Hellman, and Wells Fargo Bank.
Towers of Gold will be released in paperback on Jan. 5, 2010
Towers of Gold is a winner of a Northern California Independent Booksellers Association 2009 Book of the Year award.
San Francisco Chronicle article on the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association awards.
Towers of Gold was a Northern California Independent Booksellers Association bestseller.
The San Francisco Chronicle names Towers of Gold a 2008 Notable Bay Area book.
Towers of Gold has been nominated for a Northern California Book Award for nonfiction.
Towers of Gold is a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller.