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
Winemaking: Pressing Santa Cruz and Napa
New post on Wine Saves Lives! detailing how we press off wines.
The Steven Kent Winery has been and is devoted to the Livermore Valley, one of California’s first great wine regions. Livermore is our home, the hospitality scene is burgeoning, great restaurants and improving wines are helping the Valley to shed an image of complacency and mediocre quality.
I believe in the magic and restorative power of Cabernet Franc and know that ou
r home can be a great home for this amazing variety.
It is important for us to be as objective as we can be about the quality of the fruit from our home, and instead of just tasting our folks’ wines blind with ours, we have begun buying fruit and making wine from the Napa Valley and the Santa Cruz Mountains (at its best – the finest winegrowing region in the world for Cabernet Sauvignon) as a way of testing our winemaking skills and testing the validity of our quality hypothesis.
It so happened that these two new areas were ready for the press at the same time this year. The video above details how we go about getting free-run wine out of tank and how the leftover skins yield the press fraction of wine for our offerings.
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