"Did you ever think about all that goes into a bottle of wine?" Weiss set out to answer his wife's question and wound up writing a 39-day series for the San Francisco Chronicle
in 2004, now expanded into book form. It starts with his November 2001 meeting with Don and Rhonda Carano—the visionary proprietors who built Ferrari-Carano Winery in Sonoma County, Calif., with their Nevada gaming fortune—and ends with the wine's market debut in May 2003. Weiss elicits revelatory disclosures, both personal and professional, from sources including the intuitive, unreserved grape farmer Steve Domenchelli; the intense, secretive winemaker George Bursick; the ambitious vineyard workers from the Mexican village of El Charco; and an unnamed contact he calls "Deep Cork." An admiring yet unflinching storyteller, Weiss weaves a drama of failures and fears, tragedies and triumphs, births and deaths, ego and jealousy. His narrative shares trade secrets, tricks and gossip, and describes in detail the meticulous crafting of corks, the sun-baked cultivation of grapes, the backbreaking work of harvest, the finesse of fermenting and blending wine, and the aggressive strategy needed to take it to market. This "biography" of the 2002 Ferrari-Carano Fumé Blanc is a sweet pleasure. Agent, David Vigliano. (June)
