VINTAGE READ
Book traces ‘Lineage’ of 6 generations of local winemakers.
The Mirassou name is a familiar one to those who grew up in San Jose’s Almaden neighborhood, where the family once operated a winery. It’s also familiar to many who live in Los Gatos as the La Rochelle Winery, the brand birthed after one branch of the Mirassous sold the family name to Gallo, which is why their name is emblazoned on wines at the local supermarket.
The sale stipulated they could no longer make and market wine under the family name, so they chose the name of the port from which their French heirs had emigrated to the US in the 19th century. La Rochelle was located for a time at the Novitiate — home to Testarossa Winery — until it was relocated to Livermore by Steven Kent Mirassou, the sixth generation of Mirassou winemakers.
Earlier Mirassou founded the Steven Kent Winery, a primarily cabernet house in Livermore that gained renown for its elegant, restrained and supple style. Success with cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot and petit verdot led him to launch Lineage, a Bordeaux blend made exclusively from Livermore Valley grapes.
It was this passion project that led to the writing of his first book, “Lineage: Life and Love and Six Generations in California Wine,” recently published by Val de Grace books. Ruthe Roberts Wine Collective in Saratoga will hold a wine tasting and book signing with Mirassou on Sunday.
He’d been working on the manuscript for a while — mostly late at night — but the pandemic, coupled with father Steve Mirassou Sr.’s encouragement, forged its release.
The book pays homage to the family’s long history in the wine business, beginning with the Pellier brothers, Pierre and Louis, who emigrated from La Rochelle, France. They were carrying with them cuttings of pinot noir and mourvedre, which they used to establish a winery in the Santa Clara Valley in 1854. In 1881, French émigré and vigneron Pierre Mirassou married Pierre Pellier’s daughter, Henriette, producing five heirs, whose progeny include Steven and his children.
Mirassou, who was born in Salinas in 1964 and graduated from Los Gatos High School in 1982, had not intended to pursue the wine business as a career, wanting instead to teach literature and write novels. But circumstances, mainly a growing family and a desire to have them be around grandparents, led him and his young wife, June, whom he’d met at George Washington University, back to San Jose.
“I was born in Salinas simply because there was no hospital in Soledad,” Mirassou explains. “My Dad grew potatoes he sold to Lay’s and sugar beets he sold to Spreckels. My parents were so poor, they used to drink a bottle of Mirassou sparkling wine and then get out the rifle and shoot pheasant for dinner.”
When his father joined with his cousins and started selling wine in 1966, the family moved to south San Jose, where they enjoyed an idyllic life.
“It was one of those neighborhoods where everybody knew each other,” Mirassou says of living in the Almaden Valley. “There were lots of kids the same age. We got together at the Fourth of July, and everybody decorated their bikes and rode around the streets. It really was a wonderful place to grow up.”
His parents divorced when he was 8, and when he was 13, he moved to Los Gatos. It was then he began working on the family’s sparkling line operation as a summer job.
“I was responsible for adding the dosage to each bottle,” he recalls. “That was the side of the business I saw. I never was involved in the vineyard part. I think if I had known what it was like to participate in the magic and madness of harvest then, my life would have been completely different. I probably would have stayed in the West and gone to UC Davis.”
Instead, it wasn’t until he was in his early 30s that he experienced his very first grape crush.
“My reaction, was, ‘This is what I should be doing!’ There’s a magic to wine, and in creating anything really, especially something that appeals to someone on such an emotional level. It’s an amazing and cool thing to be involved in.”
Fittingly, the book begins and ends with Mirassou’s description of the excitement and anticipation of harvest.
“It’s like reading ‘Hamlet’ or seeing it performed,” says the author. “You can never come away without learning something new about the play, or about yourself. Wine is like that. It’s bottomless.”
For tickets to the Sunday book signing, visit Eventbrite.com. Copies of “Lineage: Life and Love and Six Generations in California Wine” can also be ordered at www.stevenkentmirassou.com.