Vineyard: A Year In The Life of California's Wine Country

It may be something about the number of grapes that get crushed, the days on the vine, the sun, or the rain, but there is a certain alchemy that takes place in the production of a bottle of wine, an alchemy that is noticeable in just one sip from any very good bottle. In Vineyard, Andy Katz and Joy Sterling have captured this alchemy with their own talents in photographs and words.

Beginning with a history of wine in California, where the most popular American wines are grown, Joy Sterling describes the precarious nature of life in the vineyard -- concerns about daily variations in weather, maintaining hope through difficult seasons, and the irony in the difficulty of handling a harvest that is larger than expected. Sterling's expressive epigrams of seasons, philosophies, and perspectives of growing wine in California are accompanied by Andy Katz's crystalline photographs of vineyards in sunlight and rain, shadow and fog, abundance and rest. His photos capture the density in the light, the texture in the leaves, and the moisture in the air.

Anyone who has ever visited California will be charmed by this stunning year-round representation of the vineyards, and those who haven't will be captivated by the sheer beauty and poetry in its vistas.