In 1973, when Hargrave and her husband, Alex, decided to start a winery on Long Island, they were "college-educated suburbanites" with no previous experience in viticulture. Besides having to learn everything about the complicated and physically demanding process of growing grapes and making wine, they made life even more difficult for themselves by deciding to plant Vitis vinifera, the wine grape of Europe that was not supposed to grow on the East Coast of the U.S. In her candid, bittersweet memoir, Hargrave tells how they overcame hurricanes, destructive birds, diseased plants, problems with regulatory agencies, and jealous wine experts who wished them ill to achieve their goal of growing Vitis vinifera
and producing award-winning wines. In 1999, she and Alex divorced, and since she couldn't afford to buy out her husband, the Hargrave Vineyard was sold. As she looks back on years of joy as well as hard work, Hargrave presents a colorful picture of life at the vineyard, describing planting and wine making, the manual labor—and how they raised their children. Her discussions of some of the historical and technical aspects of viticulture—the fermentation process; the way the type of wood used for wine barrels affects the taste of the wine—make for engaging reading. Hints of the coming breakup of her marriage embedded in her narrative are effective, but an overlong description of the couple's early years together and an account of the backpacking trip she made to Montana to do some soul-searching about the divorce detract from the main story and mar an otherwise appealing history of a pioneering vineyard. (June)
