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“You don’t look for covered wagon stories as close to home as this, but everyone who plants a new vineyard is a pioneer, and the Hargraves of North Fork were backing a pretty far-out hunch: the claret of the Hamptons. It is a tale of true grit, psychological and physical. It is also the true story of wine as only a learner can tell it. I have never seen the how and why of wine so firmly drawn, nor so closely linked to the other facts of life.”
- Hugh Johnson, author of The World Atlas of Wine
“Good women and good writing ripen like fine wine and Louisa Thomas Hargrave
combines the three in this tender and truthful memoir of her marriage and her
wins and losses in both love and business. At the end, one can sigh – ‘That was
a very good book.’”
- Laura Shaine Cunningham, author of Sleeping Arrangements and A Place in the Country
“Alex and Louisa Hargrave did more than start a winery on Long Island, they created a wine region. With warmth and spirit, Louisa recounts their 30-year saga from happy early days to a poignant end when she starts a new life on her own. A wine story? Yes, but more than that.”
- Frank Prial, The New York Times
“Louisa Hargrave’s story of growing grapes and making wine successfully on Long Island’s North Fork is about a dream brought to reality through perseverance, hard work and dedication. This book is must reading for anyone who thinks the wine business is easy, and provides original insights for the wine connoisseur. In her engaging personal voice, Louisa Hargrave describes the challenge, the science and the art of making wine in an untested region.
- Harriet Lembeck, author of Grossman’s Guide to Wines, Beers and Spirits, 7th revised edition
“The hundreds of people, maybe thousands, who know Louisa Hargrave
appreciate that she is a straightforward, realistic and good-natured lady
for whom non-stop work seems a necessity. All of this comes through in the
domestic details in ‘The Vineyard.’ She is engrossing in telling about
wrestling with life’s problems, especially big ones…The book is chockablock
with technical information, but only in a way that advances the story.
Planting, grafting, pruning, picking, winemaking methods, yeasts,
blending—these matters are presented in an ungeeky, down-to-earth style.”
- Howard Goldberg, The New York Times
“If you could make great wine scientifically, we’d be drinking Coca Cola Red.
But wine is the rare product that stands or falls on intangibles: love,
mindfulness, wit. Louisa’s book would be riveting if it only told us how she and her
husband Alec mastered the science; what makes it an instant classic is her
record of their more soulful quest. It was all I could do not to open a bottle,
the better to savor every word.”
- Jesse Kornbluth, Bookreporter.com
“Youth and naivete--and, on this case, quite a few grapes-can be the perfect ingredients for success.”
- Heather Von Tesoriero, Time
“Good writing about wine is extraordinarily rare, but Louisa Hargrave pulls it off, instantly putting herself in the same company as A.J. Liebling and M.F.K. Fisher.”
- Tony Hendra
“Part memoir, part history . . . the stories in her book are shaped by the hand-hoe as well as the pen, colored by long workdays, unexpected troubles with regulatory agencies,
the politics of wine in New York State and the emotions of both creating and
letting go.”
- Peter Gianotti, Newsday
“At heart, Hargrave’s book is a coming-of-age story that happens to take place in a vineyard. . . . often humorous, it is a poignant tale of discovery, loss and self-acceptance. Long Island is lucky to have her.”
- Wine Spectator
“In her candid, bittersweet memoir, Hargrave tells how they overcame hurricanes, destructive birds, diseased plants, problems with regulatory agencies, and jealous wine experts who wished them ill to achieve their goal of growing Vitis vinifera and producing award-winning wines. . . . As she looks back on years of joy as well as hard work, Hargrave presents a colorful picture of life at the vineyard . . .”
- Publishers Weekly
“The story catches the pioneer feel of the venture: plain, fraught, moments when Hargrave thinks she’s the luckiest person in the world, and then the opposing winds—personal meteorological, economic—that buffet all settlers to new country.”
- Kirkus
“The Vineyard is more than an inside view of what it took to create a pioneering vineyard. It is a compelling, deeply personal story of a life and a marriage and a search for happiness with which we can all identify.”
- Michael Braverman, East Hampton Star
“This in-depth look into the inner workings of the wine world is also a
lyrical and poignant personal story.”
- Les Dames d’Escoffier International Journal
“If you have ever drunk a glass or two or a bottle or two of Long Island wine, if you enjoyed Frances Mayes “Under the Tuscan Sun” or Peter Mayles’ stories about trying to settle in Provence, then this book should be a must read for you. Even if you don’t come under these categories but enjoy a well crafted, heartwarming story of modern day pioneers, then, again, put this book on your must-read list.”
- Roy Bradbrook, LongIslandWineCountry.com
Reader Reviews:
A reader from Brunswick, Maine:
Here's a book for a sparsely populated publishing niche: agricultural history as memoir. Hargrave's declared subject is how she and her husband built a vineyard from scratch on the eastern end of Long Island but it's also an engaging account of how she got from being an hopeful inexperienced young person of 21 to the mature woman who wrote this book.
There's nothing I don't like about The Vineyard. I like Hargrave's voice—direct, unadorned, humorous, clear. I like the sense we get of how hard the work was. She doesn't complain--much--but she does describe her daily life in enough detail that a reader has a vivid, physical sense of the vintner's life. Also, of how tough it is to run a business according to one's own lights. Her amateurishness—good sense, not bad sense--at the outset gives way to know-how, but only as she figured things out. And since the Hargrave wines can't be tasted as we turn the
pages, we have to take her word for the standards to which she and her husband aspired. And that's just what we do; her writing is that persuasive. She doesn't preen, never tries to show us her best profile, so we hear about her worries and annoyances, as well as about her joys.
The book is not all grapes and weather worries. Her children make frequent welcome appearances; her account of her marriage, its beginning, its long happy middle and its end, sounds pretty true-to-life. (If there were messy details, Hargrave doesn't get into them. Hargrave's ability to tell the hard truths and yet take the high road is one of her strengths as a writer.) Readers won't feel they know Alex as well as they know Louisa and their children but it's a sastisfying read nonetheless. On balance, a well-rounded portrait of a couple of people and their business.
A reader from St. Louis, MO United States:
A fascinating account of how a highly educated couple from a suburban background became successful "farming" pioneers growing grapes and making wine on Eastern Long Island. This was not sit-on-the veranda farming. The author makes reference to stories of the American frontier, and certainly that is apt, as the dedication and endurance of these pioneers was extraordinary. Their hard personal work in the fields was the equal of the pioneers, and they also had to deal with modern government. All in all, very intriguing and very well written, with enough human detail to make the people come to life.
A reader from Englewood, NJ USA:
If you loved "Little House on the Prairie" you'll love this true modern pioneer saga set in (of all places) Eastern Long Island, New York. You don't even have to be a wine enthusiast to enjoy the book, although Louisa Hargraves' descriptions of tasting may make convert you.
While telling her 30 year history of growing French varietal grapes (which people said couldn't be done), the author allows us to experience the grit behind the glamour in all its (pardon me) juicy details.
As in all successful memoirs, we get a chance to live someone else's life, imagine what it would be like to follow our dream as singlemindedly as she did, and rejoice when dreams come true. We also get to see the price that is exacted. Because Louisa Hargrave keeps us by her side, I stayed up until 2 AM to finish the book. I put it down feeling touched, informed, and inspired.
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