If you go to Wine and Spirits magazine’s page, there is a discount code for the purchase of Mr Comiskey’s book from the UC Davis bookstore website:
I really loved this book. It does have some density in terms history review that is well-detailed here–the people, events, the intersection between France and CA and how those events affected us here in CA. I learned a lot here about a varietal I enjoy a lot.
The question is asked about where the US Rhone movement goes from here. Lots of potential answers:
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First and foremost, those here and elsewhere should really support the Rhone Rangers organization. Yep, I’m a bit of a ‘homer’ for the group, sitting on its national board of directors and being President of it’s small but growing Santa Barbara County chapter, but it really is the best way to follow and support the domestic Rhone movement. We have over 100 member winerves, mainly in CA but also from OR, WA, AZ, and even a handful from MI and VA. It’s contimmediately goal is to educate American consumers specifically about these varieties.
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Support those making these varieties, and be as ‘diligent’ finding those ‘out of the spotlight’ as many do here and elsewhere by wineries making cabs or pinots.
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Look beyond Napa and Sonoma when trying to find fantastic domestic Rhones. Yes, there are tons of great examples in the North Coast, especially throughout Sonoma County, but there are so many other areas producing too notch Rhones, such as the Sierra foothills, Amador County, Santa Barbara County (had to), SLO County, and many more.
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Note the general QPR of domestic Rhones relative to other varieties . . .
Getting back to number 1, one of the biggest challenges is that the ‘high flyers’ producing these varieties domestically - Alban, Saxum, Booker, Arnot Robert’s, Colgin (insert your own) are not members of the Rhone Rangers, and that’s really a sbame. Many choose to pour at HdR, which is a wonderful showcase, but that tasting is not aimed at ‘spreading the love’ as much as it is about ‘preaching to the choir’.
I would love to have continued conversations about this, and I’m all ears to bring suggestions to the Rhone Rangers board. Tom, I will bring your suggestions about spreading the love outside of where we do tastings normally. We already have a few ideas about that, but we’ll see if finances allow that to happen.
For now, visit the website and check out who the members are. Check out information about the tasting that we did last year in Los Angeles and San Francisco and the seminars that were put on.
And just as an aside, we put on seminars yesterday in Orange County for the National American wine Society conference. We had about a hundred people in one and about a hundred and twenty-five in another listening to and tasting both white and red varieties and blends. The comments and responses we got were awesome, including the fact that many had never had a single variety roussanne or mourvedre. We accomplished what we set out to do, to spread the love, but so much more needs to be done.
Cheers!
The question is asked about where the US Rhone ml ore mentioned goes from hereach.
What?
Fixed . . .
Always a challenge of typing on one’s phone with auto-correct 
Cheers!
Well now, I’ll probably get it for a Christmas present so I’m not rushing out to purchase the book, but maybe one of you can tell me if he spends any time on Viognier, specifically, the origin story of Viognier in the US?
Yup, Nick…he devotes a whole cahptre to the story of Viog in Calif and how it saved the a$$es of all the Condrieu producers.
Without the big surge of interest in Viognier in the US, there would not have been the revitalization of Condrieu.
PeayVnyds gets several nice mentions in his book. Deservedly so…for being crazy enough to plant Syrah & Viog out there.
Tom
Thanks for the nice sentiments. I worked for Bill Smith right out of college, he of La Jota on Howell Mountain. There I learned a tale of him and Pete Minor of Ritchie Creek http://springmountaindistrict.org/vineyards/ritchie-creek-vineyard/ being the first to bring over and plant Viognier. I remember speaking to Patrick on a couple of occasions about this story but I think it was in the second conversation that Patrick related how he couldn’t verify the details because Bill’s memory was fading. I have more on the story but I was wondering if the investigative journalist had ferreted out the truth in the matter…
Yup, Nick…I think he got it right. Credits RC for having the first Viog planting.
Tom
Patrick sent me a copy of the book ( I gave him photos) Great read so far!
I love this book so much!!!
I knew of a few of the key benchmarks in the development of Rhône-style wine in the American wine scene, but no previous book is as comprehensive and beautifully expressed as Patrick Comiskey’s American Rhône. I certainly didn’t know about the formative years leading up to the Rhône Rangers and the Colloquium on the Rhône Varieties.
I just received a copy of the Rhône book by Mr Robert Mayberry. I can appreciate its value to those California winemakers seeking information on the use of the handful of grapes in crafting quality wines!!!
Totally lapsed here, but logged in for Berserker Day buys. Before departing I had to search for a thread with Tom’s take on this book. Thanks to Tom for your post. And Patrick, for the book.
In line for an HdR tasting last spring, Patrick (whom I had never met) spotted my 1992 Horton viognier (“Virginia’s Great White Hope”) T-shirt and came over to discuss a little of the history. All I could tell him was, since Tom didn’t want to write this book, I was awfully glad he did, and had put so much time into it. Such a big and important story to tell, and I think Patrick has done as much as one person, between the covers of one book, possibly could. It is dense, but a good read, not just a reference.
There aren’t many of us who were putting on viognier (i.e. Condrieu) tastings before Mat Garretson caught the bug. I visited Pete Minor and the Smiths in the spring of ’88 on that quest. Tasted the Ritchie Creek on his windswept mountain ridge (hardly a viognier site, in retrospect), all done up in Armagnac bottles. La Jota hadn’t yet released their first vintage, but Bill was willing to uncork one and sell a few. From those acorns … I had no perspective how big a catalyst that viognier microburst was until I read the book.
Mayberry’s book was undisturbed on my shelf for lo, these many years until American Rhones. I think I picked it up at a book signing at Connoisseur Wines in Chicago, who also sold me Alain Graillot’s very first vintage that day … how good a wine merchant was that?!
Perhaps the one shame is that the book strikes me as more a catalyst for memories and rethinking history, than something that illuminates a future path. Given the consolidation (and ultra dumbing-down) of distribution in much of the country, “growing the niche” will be the best that can be done. The QPR, and increasingly the originality, of the wines is so far ahead of the “super-premiums” and “cult wines” that do sell, sometimes in quantity, I’m at a loss as to what more the producers can do. A market inefficiency I have been exploiting for decades now.
Tremendous book and describes a relatively recent period that many here lived and drank through. The energy and excitement of the 80s and 90s was something to behold.
I’ve drifted a bit from Rhone Rangers to Pinot (I never drift far from Zinfandel). Makes me want to readjust.
Upon completing the book I drank a '13 Copain “Brosseau Vineyard” Syrah - a great RR to celebrate a great book.