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
The Lineage Wine Collection’s winemaking team talk about great Cabernet Francs from Leah Jørgensen Cellars in Oregon and the Steven Kent Winery in the Livermore Valley.
“The day is winding down and three people are doing what they love, and I even say as much… “isn’t this fucking amazing what we get to do?” We’re about to talk about the ten wines in front of us… what’s compelling about #2 or why we should kick out
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
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
I had the wonderful opportunity to taste the Steven Kent Winery 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon, one of our very early vintages, after locating a half-bottle in a case that was being moved to another warehouse. Beth Refsnider, a member of our winemaking team, took the wine to one of the
Blending wine is like trying to turn over, blindfolded, all the tumblers in a cage whose lock is constantly moving. The Lineage Collection winemaking team’s sole job is to free the shackled prisoner inside. She is Perfect Beauty. We always go into Blending Season with the confidence that she is
Lineage is our most complicated blend; it can comprise five different grapes (the classic Bordeaux varieties) and Cabernet Sauvignon from more than 10 blocks on six vineyards. Aidan, Beth, and I start each year with nearly 150 barrels of wine, and from these, we carve aspirants away until we are
