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Frances Dinkelspiel

Author | Journalist | Speaker

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Recent Posts

  • Mark C. Anderson, the arsonist at the center of Tangled Vines, leaves prison
  • After 13 years, I am stepping down from the Berkeley news site I co-founded, Berkeleyside
  • The Oakland-Berkeley Firestorm incinerated my house 30 years ago
  • Wildfires ravage Northern California wine country
  • In which I talk (more) about wine fraud, this time on television

Archives

Violence in the Vineyards

September 25, 2015 by Frances Dinkelspiel Leave a Comment

St. Junipero Serra

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 19th 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.

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Father Junipero Serra, John Sutter, wine

5 little-known facts about the history of California wine

September 11, 2015 by Frances Dinkelspiel 7 Comments

TangledXVinesMy 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.

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: California wine, California Wine Association, California wine history, Father Junipero Serra, grapes, Los Angeles wine, Tangled Vines, Tangled Vines: Greed, wine, Winehaven

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