Reviewed by LiDoña Wagner

Whether you are a wine aficionado or not, Michael Sanders’ Families of the Vine has something for you.  Besides the pleasure of lovely writing, Sanders provides a delightful depiction of people for whom wine is not just an accompaniment to a meal but a passion that engulfs their lives and drives them to excel. Your tour of southwest France and introduction to the intricacies of vineyards and winemaking is guided by Sanders’ experience of the seasons: spring hope, summer drought, fall harvest and vinification, and winter fermentation with prospects of reward. Summer 2003 brought a heat wave that killed hundreds of people, particularly in Paris. Sanders recounts these families’ response to the shriveling of their vines as the drought wore on: “… the more time I spent with the winemakers that summer, the more it felt like I was holding vigil over a slow death in the family.” Working a fall harvest himself gave Sanders a taste of its hard physical labor and, waist-deep in slippery crushed grapes, the danger of drowning in a vinification tank. In the winter, as the wine rests in oak barrels and stainless steel tanks, you meet the middlemen who determine its price.

The character and philosophy of Yves and Martine Jouffreau keep you reading about wine history, terroir, the crafting of oak barrels, the role of the sommelier (wine advisor) at a restaurant, and where to taste wine in Cahors. “Nailed to the land by the needs of the vines and the wine,” Yves and Martine carry on an experiment - growing ancient vines in harsh conditions in an attempt to produce a wine of the past - for the simple reason that “when you are learning you know you are alive.”

As an artist who had never thought about winemaking, I was surprised to discover through the Jouffreaus and other winemaking families that the passion to make a great wine is on a parallel with the drive to paint a masterpiece, to compose a time-transcending composition, or even craft a work of enduring literary non-fiction.