My First Crush: Misadventures in Wine Country

Chronicling the first years Kaplan and her husband owned and ran Panther Creek, a winery in Oregon's Willamette Valley, this book is as sweetly tart as a pinot noir grape and just as likely to appeal to oenophiles. A wine novice and new empty-nester in Iowa, Kaplan was suddenly thrust into the wine-making world when her husband left his lucrative law practice and bought Panther Creek. As Kaplan soon learns, making wine is not easy, and the learning curve is steep. Her insiders guide to the industry-describing the rigor of the harvest, the dangerous guessing game that is fermentation and the endless salesmanship wrapped up in hosting wine tastings and wine dinners and entering wine contests-is an unflinching look at a difficult job. She also offers many sidebars with useful information about wine (e.g., why latitude matters when making wine; how to organize a wine tasting), though some readers, particularly the wine savvy, may be skeptical initially of taking advice from someone who stumbled into the business armed with Wine for Dummies. While Kaplan sometimes seems too much like a ""trailer"" (a woman following her husband on his dream) and one never gets the feeling that the couple, who at one point cruise the Oregon countryside in their Miata, were ever in dire financial straits, this is still a warm, behind-the-scenes look at the wine business and an inspiring tale of a couple starting over midlife. Photos.