“The first time Bill made wine, he was buck naked…”
So begins The Mad Crush, the improbable but true story about the making of one great wine and the souls who paved its way over a period of 115 years—including nude grape stompers, a freethinking village potter, a California surfing legend, a reclusive winemaker, the winemaker’s ex-wife’s one-legged boyfriend, and a mysterious dead coyote.
The Mad Crush starts when Bill Greenough, owner of Saucelito Canyon Vineyard in the wildlands of California’s Central Coast, recruits author Christopher Weir to work the 1995 “crush”—the seasonal push to process the harvested grapes. What ensues is a life-changing harvest season like no other, during which a motley winery crew is challenged to make fine wine the hard way in the face of folly, adversity and even fire.
But while The Mad Crush revolves around the eyebrow-raising escapades of the 1995 crush, it ultimately tells the larger tale of a century-old Zinfandel vineyard and the adventuresome characters who have dared to call it home. Along the way, Weir unearths a trove of serendipitous stories, all of them somehow pointing the way to this remote place that cuts an unlikely path through the history of California wine.
From the planting of the vines in 1880 by an itinerant Englishman to Greenough’s 1960s winemaking exploits in Santa Barbara’s bohemian Mountain Drive community, The Mad Crush is not just an exploration of winemaking, but also a question of destiny.
THE MAD CRUSH: A Memoir of Mythic Vines and Improbable Winemaking
Sean Christopher Weir
March 2015 | Trade Paperback $11.95 | eBook $9.99 | 158 pages including 15 photos
Available on Amazon, Amazon Kindle and other select booksellers
Advance Praise for THE MAD CRUSH:
“As a lover of California wines, I consider The Mad Crush a must-have…It’s an in-depth and intriguing adventure into the heart and history of California winemaking.”
-Don Dokken, heavy metal legend and wine connoisseur
Back Cover Description:
“The first time Bill made wine, he was buck naked…”
In 1880, a star-crossed Englishman planted a Zinfandel vineyard in the wildlands of California’s Central Coast. Nearly a century later, in 1974, an iconoclast from Santa Barbara discovered the Englishman’s abandoned old vines and restored them with nothing more than a pick and shovel. And in the fall of 1995, an improbable cast of characters found their way to this vineyard, embarking on a season of folly and adversity in the pursuit of making one great wine.
The Mad Crush is the eyewitness story of that wine and the souls who shaped its making over a period of 115 years—including nude grape stompers, a freethinking village potter, a California surfing legend, a reclusive winemaker, the winemaker’s ex-wife’s one-legged boyfriend, and a mysterious dead coyote. This true account of devotion and redemption will ultimately change how you drink and think about California wine.
Gee, this is written like they were the only ones buck naked in a wine tank. Without naming names, this was a tradition in Dry Creek Valley in Healdsburg for many years. We would get out of the tank, go jump in the lake then picnic drinking the wine we made the previous year. I imagine some who were there will read this. Howdy all.