If you’ve ever had a glass of California wine and wondered about the stories behind the bottle—the history, the people, the grit—here’s a book by Elaine Chukan Brown, who has long been digging into those very themes.

Chukan Brown’s new book, The Wines of California, is the first comprehensive look at California wine in over a decade. It arrives at a time when the state's wine industry faces multiple challenges and opportunities. The book’s refreshing perspective goes beyond producer profiles, offering an in-depth exploration of California's wine: how it has evolved, the current growing areas and key figures, and where it might be headed.

Drawing on a cultural anthropology and philosophy background, the award-winning wine writer and educator guides readers through 13 years of immersive, boots-on-the-ground research across every corner of the Golden State.

Despite its sweeping historical scope and deep dives into various topics, The Wines of California is not a heavy, academic tome. It’s engaging and easy to read with an honest, straightforward tone that makes the wealth of detail feel enlightening rather than overwhelming.

The first time I opened it, three hours flew by before I finally returned to my long list of emails, where I was met with a few politely nudging follow-ups. So I was happy to catch up with the author a few days later to talk about what really drives California’s wine industry, the overlooked charm of Petite Sirah, and favorite spots for wine lovers to explore.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

Lisa Denning: What sparked the idea of writing The Wines of California, and how is it different from other books on the subject?

**Photo of Elaine Chukan Brown by Tegan Passalacqua.**

Elaine Chukan Brown: In the past, there's been amazing writing on California wine. Charles Sullivan has incredible books on different regions, and Thomas Pinney has examined wine in general. But interestingly, there hasn't been a book on the state as a whole in quite a long time. The most recent one that covered California comprehensively was in 2011, The Fine Wines of California. It focused on a specific tier of wines and was more of a digest—pages of producer profiles, essentially.

I spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of book would give readers what they need as wine students or wine lovers, but also the kind of book I would want to turn to myself. I kept coming back to these questions, and I'm always following what's happening in wine. But why? How did we get here?

I realized that's what I'm consistently curious about: both the internal links and the bigger picture. I started working on what it would mean to write a book that connects the two, while still fulfilling what we expect a wine book to be.

The book is divided into three parts. What can readers expect in each section?

The first section is How We Got Here, which looks at history and traces the story from the beginning—when wine first arrived in what is now California—up to the present. It looks at the question, “How did we get here?” by putting wine history in a bigger context.

The second section, Where We Grow, looks at regions, varieties, and growing conditions. My hope is that it offers more personal insights into how each region became what it is, what's unique about that place, and some of the people who helped develop it.

The third section, What We're Facing, starts in the present and asks: What does the future of wine in California look like? I start with a chapter on the cultural significance of wine because I think there are times when people think, "Why are we so worried about this? It's just wine." But wine is always part of a bigger picture. This section then addresses how we deal with market and climate questions.

For many people, California wine means Napa and Sonoma. What are some regions you think people should be paying more attention to?

In terms of availability, affordability, and quality, I think both Lodi and Monterey counties really have a lot to offer. It's easier to find wines from those regions that are well made, intriguing, and also affordable.

Any region that's going to be the backbone of the state is doing it by producing those kinds of wines. I really think of Lodi, especially because of its history. I think Lodi formed the backbone of California wine history. Monterey started more recently, but it really shows a commitment to continuing to make those kinds of approachable wines available.

If someone wants to experience California wine country, where would you recommend they visit?

If you want a tangible wine country experience, Santa Barbara County is easy to get to in terms of proximity to bigger towns and airports. There’s amazing, delicious wine there. The advantage of Santa Barbara County is also, in a way, its disadvantage in that there's a collection of tasting rooms in this spot and in that spot, and that's where to go if you want to go to a bunch of tastings in a row. If that's the kind of experience you want, I absolutely recommend going up into Santa Barbara County, not just the town. But the disadvantage is that you're not in the vineyards or at the wineries.

If you want that kind of experience, Napa and Sonoma are the more obvious choices. Sonoma is, in some ways, easier to get around. But if you're looking for something that feels more at-home and personal, places like Clarksburg or Lodi have that welcoming, country feel.

A really happy medium would be Paso Robles. There, you get a combination of comfortable luxury—it’s not as expensive as full-on Napa luxury, and it has this grounded, at-home feeling. You can choose to go to tasting rooms or visit wineries and vineyards. I think the best all-around option is Paso.

What was the most surprising thing you learned about California while researching and writing the book?

Seeing how profoundly cyclical and repetitive our history is, there are certain issues we keep circling back to. We'll try to solve them a little bit, then decide not to keep going, and now we're right back into it. The labor shortage is a prime example. From the founding of California wine under New Spain, we've had a labor shortage every 20 years or so—and it's really of our own making.

It was really vivid to go through history in such a focused way and to see these patterns illustrated so clearly.

What's one California grape variety that you think deserves more love?

I’ve been thinking about Petite Sirah recently. I even wrote about it in the book's introduction. There’s a sense in which it’s unique for us. It was bred in southern France, and it exists in Australia, Israel, and here in California. We have it in mass, and it’s played a crucial role and helped shape the history of California wine.

During Prohibition and in the couple of decades after, almost everything was planted to field blends. You’d just have a “red” or a “white,” with a mix of varieties planted together. Petite Sirah, in the mixed reds, provided backbone, reliability, structure, and depth. But the part that's not talked about as much is that Petite Sirah also offers this incredible perfume. If it's farmed well and picked at a more moderate ripeness, it can smell like violets and fresh plums—really floral and lifted. And then it can go all the way to almost chocolatey, woodsy notes, while still holding on to a little floral quality.

It's unique to California because this is the one place in the world with enough of it for people to discover its full range and potential. You can make burly, powerful, dark, structured wines with it. But you can also make really pretty, structured but poised wines.

In the 1970s, people started doing single-variety plantings, and Petite Sirah began getting these little pockets where it could shine on its own. It’s just a beautiful wine, with a lot of intrigue and complexity, but it’s rarely discussed in that way. People tend to see it as a “big boy” wine or something you blend in to make another wine bigger. But on its own, it has incredible beauty and power, and with age, wonderful finesse.

Who would be your dream interview subject, living or not, from the California wine world?

It would be amazing to meet and talk with Brad Webb. He was the founding winemaker for Hanzell and a brilliant problem solver. Webb was the first to successfully carry out a controlled malolactic fermentation in a winery, not just in California but in all of North America. He partnered with researchers at UC Davis and created a lab inside the winery. Before that, sometimes it happened, sometimes it didn’t, and a red wine that hasn’t gone through malolactic is hard; there's not enough softness to it.

Brad Webb also developed the first temperature-controlled fermentation tanks in California. Mondavi is famous for using them, but he got the technology from Brad Webb. There are a bunch of other things like that which Brad Webb was the first to do, and because he problem-solved a challenge, everybody now takes it for granted.

Of course, someone like André Tchelistcheff would be an incredible person to interview, too. Many people did get to talk with him, so we know a lot of his views. And that’s super valuable, but there are lesser-sung heroes that, when you get to know them and find out where they’re coming from, take you down into another level of insight and I really love that.

You once said that your book might be banned. What did you mean by that?

Some of the topics I talk about are very much supposed to be off the table right now. The history section looks honestly at California's history—genocide, segregation, countermandates—to discover how we came out of them and kept moving forward. These are topics where the country is at a tension point, with some saying we must acknowledge these things and others saying we shouldn't talk about them. So when I said the book could be banned, I was being a little cheeky—but also genuine.

I also discuss diversity efforts, another area of tension. We’ve had decades of experience now, since multiculturalism took hold in the late '80s, and research shows that teams with different backgrounds bring different insights into what could be a challenge and how we might solve it. Yet at the same time, we're saying, “No, we shouldn't be focusing on that. That's a distraction.” 

The book's tone is straightforward and not accusatory, but it also examines hard topics.  In some ways, the tone makes the hard topics look straightforward, so maybe the book comes off as less dramatic than it felt while I was writing. That said, the book includes many topics that are real tension points in the country right now.

What excites you the most about the future of California wine?

I think we're in a place where we must collaborate and problem-solve. The underlying theme of the book is how people come together, willing to problem-solve and create solutions over and over again.

That kind of fame, glamour, and success we often focus on? It only ever comes from that process. We hit a challenge, decide to face it, come together, work on it—and boom, it works out. That's what success is: this process of solving challenges, and the book is written with that perspective in mind..

So we're facing multiple challenges right now. When we remember what success is, the fact that we're facing these challenges means we have the greatest opportunity to come together and work on problem-solving. I find that exciting because it means we're at this crux point. We could come together, problem-solve, and transform the direction we're heading in, and that's exciting.

The Wines of California ($34–$45) is available at local independent bookstores, biblio.com, bookshop.org, or from the publisher at academieduvin.com.