A new book is exploring the intertwined lives of a Jewish immigrant and his immortal legacy in California's wine culture, an arsonist who torched millions of dollars worth of irretrievable vintage wines, and the people caught in between, Forward noted.
The book by Frances Dinkelspiel is entitled Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California. To backtrack, there was a controversial arson case in 2005 which involved millions of bottles of wine that went up in smoke. Of the many lost vintage wines, 175 priceless bottles of Isaias Helmman's dessert wine were included.
Who is this man? Hellman was, first and foremost, the author's great-grandfather. He is widely regarded as the pioneer for many modern systems like real estate development and agriculture in California. In a time when telegraphs were a rarity in the world, his contributions to society had a wide rippling effect still felt today.
Fast forward to 2005. a Vallejo warehouse burned and the cause was arson. The warehouse had in its safekeeping an eye-popping 4.5 million bottles of wine with a combined worth of $250 million. What surprised many was the fact that Mark Anderson, the man who pleaded guilty in 2009, was an unassuming and pretty well-liked guy.
Adding to the drama was also the fact that Anderson then attempted to change his plea. This affected the perception of his credibility and was sentenced to 27 years in prison in 2012. He maintains his innocence to this day.
Dinkelspiel said of Anderson, "He betrayed a lot of people in Sausalito. He was very civilly oriented, an upstanding, law-abiding guy and people liked him. So then to find out he did this horrible crime really upset a lot of people."
The author attempts to trace back her Jewish routes by exploring the life of her great-grandfather and his contributions to the wine industry. Back then, his vineyards were among the first in California and he helped that entire industry blossom to what it is today.
That any much more can be found in her book. You can read the reviews here.
