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 explore the history of Cabernet Franc in the Old World and in the New; expand upon recent thoughts of why the Livermore Valley ought to set itself up as the home of the variety in California, and what makes Cab Franc so hedonistically perfect! Check out the White Paper.
There are no real ends in wine (maybe when the bottle is finished…but that just leads to the beginning of another bottle being opened!), but there are moments in the history of harvest to bottling where the winemaker needs to make a definitive decision that separates one part of winemaking
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
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
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,
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
