Tangled Vines

Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California

By: Frances Dinkelspiel

Narrated by: Dina Pearlman

On October 12, 2005, a massive fire broke out in the Wines Central wine warehouse in Vallejo, California. Within hours, the flames had destroyed 4.5 million bottles of California's finest wine worth more than $250 million, making it the largest destruction of wine in history. The fire had been deliberately set by a passionate oenophile named Mark Anderson, a skilled con man and thief with storage space at the warehouse who needed to cover his tracks.

With a propane torch and a bucket of gasoline-soaked rags, Anderson annihilated entire California vineyard libraries as well as bottles of some of the most sought-after wines in the world. Among the priceless bottles destroyed were 175 bottles of port and Angelica from one of the oldest vineyards in California, made by Frances Dinkelspiel's great-great grandfather, Isaias Hellman, in 1875.

Sadly, Mark Anderson was not the first to harm the industry. The history of the California wine trade, dating back to the 19th century, is a story of vineyards with dark and bloody pasts, tales of rich men, strangling monopolies, the brutal enslavement of vineyard workers, and murder. Five of the wine trade murders were associated with Isaias Hellman's vineyard in Rancho Cucamonga, beginning with the killing of John Rains, who owned the land at the time. He was shot several times, dragged from a wagon, and left off the main road for coyotes to feed on.

In her new book, Frances Dinkelspiel looks beneath the casually elegant veneer of California's wine regions to find the obsession, greed, and violence lying in wait. Few people sipping a fine California Cabernet can even guess at the Tangled Vines where its life began.

©2015 Frances Dinkelspiel (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Thought ready made the story move along and added drama but she should have done homework on pronunciations.

The author wove disparate stories and yet tied them together with the allure of the wine

I was put off by the readers absolute lack of know

was put off by the readers total lack of knowledge about the pronunciation of California towns and cities Wineries and French terms intergral to the wine business why on Earth would they pick this reader for this book. I enjoyed the story and I love the way the author weaved her personal story Into the book
but it was so annoying I just waited for the next problem-- like how do you pronounce sommelier how do you pronounce Charles Krug .

great story awful pronunciation

this book over all is great. There are so many historical stories about the wine industry. However, the person that read this book obviously knows nothing about wine. Her pronunciation of so many words is absolutely terrible. It is very close to Nails on a chalkboard, unfortunately. She did the author a complete disservice.

Bad Narration

The narrator had poor pronunciation. The subject and history was interesting and informative. I bought the book to accompany us on a trip to Napa.

very good book but so many mispronunciations

has someone in the wine business I found this book fascinating. the author did a great job of interweaving the multiple storylines and tying them all together by the end. Sadly the narrator is not familiar with wine industry and mispronounced so many of the wine regions and grapes.

Wine lovers' interesting professions

I learned so much about the innerrellated workers and investors as well as regions off California. this is a very well written andcresearched book. I highly recommend listening to the amazing narrator... a great skill for languages and nuances.

Good story about wine but...

There is some good history about wine presented in this book but the book seems to ramble a bit. Overall very enjoyable. What prompted me to write this review, my first in fact, is the incredibly poor pronunciation of a good 90% of the names and places. I grew up in Marin County in California (pronounced Muh-rin not Mar-in) and Napa and have lived in the Bay Area my entire life. The Frances Dinkelspiel’s uncanny ability to mispronounce the vast majority of names and places almost ruined the story for me. Maybe a 5-10 minute primer before just pressing the record button. Wow.

Beautiful descriptions. Well researched and detailed.

A little too much history on wine for a novice. So many characters introduced that didn’t add to the story.

Very interesting story but the narration......

Would you listen to Tangled Vines again? Why?

Really enjoyed this story but the narrator's horrible pronunciation errors made it so hard to listen to.

Interesting but disjointed story

What did you like best about this story?

The portions of the story relating to Mark Anderson and the 2005 fire were by far the most captivating.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

I've been listening to audio books for several years now, and this ranks among the worst narrators I have heard. Her mispronunciation of key terms like "sommelier" really detracted from the listening experience, along with her totally unemotional, flat affect. The author states in the prologue that the entire point of her researching and writing the book was to understand the passions that wine arouses in people, such that they would be willing to run so far afoul of the law. But the narration demonstrates no passion at all; it may as well have been read by Siri or a robot.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yes, if it stayed focused on the Mark Anderson story. I truly did not understand the diversion into 19th century California and the excruciating minutiae included in that bit of the story.