Lineage: Life and Love and Six Generations in California Wine
by Steven Kent Mirassou
Hardcover – June 2021
Steven Kent Mirassou received his BA in American Literature from the George Washington University and his MA in Literature from NYU. He was born in the Salinas Valley and grew up in San Jose and Los Gatos before going east to college. Lineage: Life and Love and Six Generations in California Wine is his first book.
Mirassou started his wine career in sales but found his true passion after moving into the production side of the business in 1996. Steven has made the highest rated wines from the Livermore Valley, is a founder of the Mount Diablo Highlands Wine Quality Alliance, and the President of the Livermore Valley Wine Growers Association.
Steven has four adult children, April Coffey, Aidan Mirassou, Katherine Mirassou, and Sara Mirassou. He lives in Pleasanton, CA with his fiancée, Nancy Castro, and their three dogs.
I’m headed back home to the winery after most of the week in Portland to take care of some family issues. God, how I have missed my morning routine in the cellar, and god how I fucking love my work! There is nothing routine about getting to the winery every
I had the great pleasure to appear on my friends’, David Ransom and Melanie Young’s, podcast – The Connected Table. In this episode, we talk about my new book, Mirassou family history, Livermore Valley, and what makes Cabernet Franc so damn exciting. I originally met Melanie and David on
Everything up to the press is just foreplay. The grapes come in and are crushed and shunted off to their fermenters. It is there, whether in tank or plastic boxes, that they will polish and preen, showing off for the winemaker, pouting one day – ebullient and triumphant another. Each
Today was one of those perfect harvest days where there are way too many things to do in the number of hours available and yet the day – in its perfect wisdom – opens itself felicitously to allow everything to be squeezed in and the day to start and to
This morning, 1300 feet above sea level on a mountain in Felton under a sky blue enough to be a painting, I loaded three tons of Merlot on a flatbed truck to take back to the winery. The hill at Zayante Vineyard slopes down south to the sea, and there
Laura Ness, a long-time local wine writer, has written a wonderful article about the South Bay family history of the Mirassou family that appears in the San Jose Mercury News. Much of this material appears in Steven Kent Mirassou’s new book – Lineage: Life and Love and Six Generations in
Today, my book Lineage: Life and Love and Six Generations in California Wine is officially birthed to the world and available on Amazon.com. What an amazing feeling! I spent about 18 months before and during Covid writing this love letter to cellars and vineyards, wine, and those crazy and wonderful
I appeared on Chris Yonker’s The Secret Thoughts of CEOs podcast recently. You can hear the episode here. Chris is a wonderfully intuitive coach who specializes in helping companies create succession plans. We had an opportunity to talk about dealing with loss while still trying to move a company forward. Chris’ philosophy of
A recurring vision: A lone rider pitched against the wind, canted low over the shoulder of his horse for warmth, his woolen coat soaked through with rain coming in on the horizontal. The trees lining the post road move wildly, in a Pentecostal dance in the frozen wind, trunks firing
On July 31, 2021, we launched Lineage: Life and Love and Six Generations in California Wine at The Lineage Collection. A video commemorating the event is just above. “Lineage” is a book about one family’s history in the wine business and a history of my winegrowing region. Mostly, though,
