New Book Tells the Stories and Celebrates the 10-County Foothills Region
Ten counties, 280 wineries in the largest wine region in terms of acreage in the whole United States – that’s the Sierra Foothills. Barbara Keck’s newly released book, “Wineries of the Sierra Foothills: Risk-Takers & Rule-Breakers,” provides an affectionate yet thorough look at this region. Why-we-did-it stories of 21 winemakers explore the risks and rewards of starting and growing a wine business in California’s Sierra Foothills.
The decomposed granitic soil of the Sierra Nevada provides a distinct terroir that is expressed in all wines from this region. Grape vines grown at elevations ranging from 800 to 3000 feet wage a struggle with the elements that results in rich and elegant wines. The Gold Rush led to a vigorous wine scene that supplied miners with their daily dram, but Prohibition sadly resulted in a fading of those wineries until a 1960’s revival by pioneers of a different sort. Readers meet some of these iconic winemaking pioneers in the chapters of the book.
Keck and photographer Johan Martin drove 3400 miles to visit every one of the ten Foothills counties and gathered compelling stories and hundreds of images. The final 176-page book contains 21 winemaker stories, plus original recipes that the winemaker families and friends created to pair with landmark wines. A complete up-to-date directory of all 280 wineries is organized to make wine touring in the Foothills easy. The book is conveniently sized to fit into a small pocketbook or the map holder of a car.
For those wine lovers who want to prepare in advance for their wine experience at Sierra Foothills wineries, the book can be purchased at website www.WineriesOfTheSierraFoothills.com. The book is also in stock for purchase on site at many tasting rooms in the Sierra Foothills.
“Finally, a book about the wines and winemakers of the Sierra Foothills,” noted Cyril Penn, Editor of Wine Business Monthly in his review of the book. “…A willingness to push boundaries by trying new things is one of the reasons the Sierra Foothills is one of the most exciting wine regions today.”
About the author:
Barbara Keck has been writing about wines, with a particular love and orientation toward Sierra Foothills wineries, for many years. She is a wine columnist for The Tahoe Weekly magazine. A longtime writer and journalist, Barbara earned her MBA in Agribusiness and Marketing from Harvard Business School. After three decades as a marketing consultant to industry, she turned her attention to the wine business. Barbara is a fervent advocate of wineries of the Sierra Foothills, and appreciates the risk-taking required to create a winery anywhere.
