James Conaway wraps up Napa wine trilogy

Jim Conaway’s first book, “Napa: The Story of an American Eden,” addressed the 1990 politics of wine, while his second book, “The Far Side of Eden,” focused on the environmental effects of the industry in 2003.

Now he is working on a third book he says will focus on the growers who once supported the wine industry but are now having second thoughts about the impact of an economy based on wine tourism and hospitality.

Conaway divides his time between Washington, D.C., and Virginia’s wine country, with frequent trips to California, but he got his start as a reporter. When the Washington Post’s wine critic quit, he offered to take over. He now writes books and national articles about topics that often include wine.

In May, he tipped his hand by writing about how Thomas Jefferson might view the threat to Napa Valley farming posed by tourism and hospitality. The article was first published in the University of Virginia Quarterly Review.

In a recent interview, he said he is writing about a larger threat posed to the nation, when love of money takes precedence over love of the land.

“I have always thought Napa Valley is a composite of America,” he said, “the most important single entity of real estate and how the availability of cheap real estate in the West led to Manifest Destiny, which grew out of the land. Napa is the representation of that.

“Things happen faster in Napa than they happen elsewhere, not just making money, but also the notion of the culture of wine and the American interpretation of that culture. Also, the sort of blessed quality Napa has, the natural beauty of the place, the great grapes making great wine, the mountain ranges and being next to San Pablo Bay. It’s gorgeous to look at, with ideal climate. And with a very large fresh-water lake under it, the valley has a lot of water.”

But like the rest of the nation, the Napa Valley is facing tremendous challenges.

“We are entering a period of great uncertainty, with global warming and with the governor at the beginning of a major reorganization with regard to water,” he said. “Napa is in the middle of that question as well, and I tend to get into that in this next book.”

If Napa is portrayed in the book as the nation’s canary, being used to check the health of the nation’s coal mine, who represents Conaway’s canary?

“Success (for) Napa family wineries doesn’t mean what it once meant,” said Conaway. “Families are still involved, but environmentally and socially they are going to a highly accelerated place in terms of American mores and ideals.”

Because Napa Valley is so concentrated, Conaway said, “a lot of talented, wealthy Americans tend to get overlooked by the high-end wine business. You still have growers and vintners, but the complexion of the place as an American place is up for grabs now.”

It is placed in jeopardy by the increased influence of wine corporations, coupled with “a corporate attitude about what a place should look like and how it can be made to best generate revenue from wine, tourism, hospitality or whatever.”

As a result, some of the strongest defenders of agriculture 20 years ago “now feel that a relatively few are trying to maximize their interests at the expense of the community. This is what the fight is about.” Some long-timers are saying, ‘Wait a minute. Nobody said you would have the right to do anything you wanted.’ ”

Rising profits were always anticipated through normal projections of growth, he said. But now, as wine interests search for even more amazing profits, they are threatening the agricultural community.

“Many of the places in Napa have that agricultural value, and that is what was supposed to have been preserved” by the Agricultural Preserve enacted in 1969, he said. “But the theme today, what people are talking about, is they are afraid the place they live in will be altered beyond the ability to resuscitate itself.”

To make his point in the upcoming book, Conaway interviews a few longtime Napa families, with whom he has kept in touch since his first book was published 25 years ago.

“Their stories are relevant,” he said. “They have not just done well for themselves, they have also done well for the Valley, in their own ways. Most of them are still there.

“The truth is, guys like (grower) Andy Beckstoffer could have had a great big winery with his name on it, but he stayed essentially with the growers and was more interested in that. He remained a farmer. He is extremely successful, but he stuck with what he started out with.”

Another theme Conaway is developing involves ordinary workers.

“Ordinary workers here are Mexican, not American,” he said. “They are the original Americans. If you think about it, it’s funny. Through their labor and their initiative, the Spanish-Americans are sort of taking back what was taken from them.”

Conaway said he expects to spend the next 18 months finishing the book, the final installment of a trilogy.

“I would like the three books to stand as a testament to the place. Some people object to them, but I see them as positive,” helping people deal with “threats and possible disasters” that face the valley.

Conaway said he hopes the book inspires “preservationists and environmentalists to work together against the interests trying to get the most natural resources, exploiting the landscape. The same is true with the American place, the loss of American families and what always represented the American landscape.

“Napa is on the edge of that now. People are rising up and saying ‘that’s enough.’ The Agricultural Preserve saved agriculture and the quality of the product. That way of life is changing, and people are afraid it’s slipping away.”

Contact Napa Valley Towns Correspondent Doug Ernst at Napa?ValleyTowns@?gmail.com.