In the Middle of the Night, Thinking of Wine
I was awoken in the middle of the night last night by a vision of the life I live — one that is beholden to the fates of Nature
Menu
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 Livermore, CA with his wife, Beth Murray Mirassou, and their two dogs
Lineage Arrives and Drops a Pin in the Family Timeline
A journey that started 167 years ago in a vineyard my great-great-great-grandfather planted in San Jose ended yesterday morning on the stamped concrete driveway of my winery with the delivery of the first pallets of Lineage: Life and Love and Sixth Generations in California Wine.
As the oldest winemaking family in the US, there have been a lot of pins placed on our winemaking timeline. The publication of my first book is just the latest. What started out as very intermittent jottings over the course of the last 20 years, gained clarity and an open mental runway during Covid. Most nights in 2020, I’d stay up late with just Miles Davis to keep me company as I wrote about the most meaningful aspects of being in the wine life.
The simple, everyday magic to be found in hard, purposeful work as we shepherd unruly nature into bottomlessly beautiful wine is as much as I could want from this part of the journey.
The line connecting me, unendingly, to my thrice-removed grandfather and now to the generations after me – all of us in pursuit of making beauty and bringing joy and richness to peoples’ lives through wine – is stronger and more clearly defined than it has ever been. The road getting here has had many corners and led to a few empty rooms, but is comforting to know that is the right road after all.
Latest Posts:
In a new post on Wine Saves Lives!, Steven Kent Mirassou and Beth Murray of The Steven Kent Winery talk about the new release of The Premier, Steven Kent’s best
Dosage Trial: Putting Finishing Touches on New Sparkling Wine
Yesterday, Em and I had the opportunity to evaluate a dosage trial done on our new méthode champenoise Pinot Noir from the Santa Cruz Mountains. A dosage trial consists of adding different levels