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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

Mark C. Anderson, the arsonist at the center of Tangled Vines, leaves prison

October 7, 2022 by Frances Dinkelspiel 3 Comments

Mark C. Anderson, the man behind the vast wine warehouse fire I write about in Tangled Vines, has been released from federal prison. Records show he walked out the doors of Terminal Island in southern California on Oct. 6, 2022. Anderson, now 73, was given compassionate release because of his poor health. He is relocating to Sacramento and will be close to medical treatment at UC Davis. His health problems (prostrate cancer, a bad back, obesity) were exacerbated by a bad case of COVID-19 in April 2020, according to court documents. He now also has congestive heart failure and kidney disease.

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Mark C. Anderson, wine

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

September 6, 2015 by Frances Dinkelspiel Leave a Comment

TangledXVinesI 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.

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: arson, fire, Mark Anderson, Mark C. Anderson, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California, Tangled Vines, Tangled Vines: Greed, wine

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