John Briscoe’s Crush, a History of Wine in California, Wins Top Book Awards
Briscoe Ivester & Bazel’s founding partner John Briscoe is the recipient of the 2020 Oscar Lewis Award for Western history, given annually by the Book Club of California, for his Crush: The Triumph of California Wine. The book also took First Prize in the Top Shelf Book Awards for 2019, and was runner-up for two other prestigious honors.
Crush chronicles the four-times derailed run of California wine to the pinnacle of the wine world in 1976, 200 hundred heart-breaking years after the industry began, and weaves the history of California wine within the history of the State, and the history of the world. Who knew that World War I and the sinking of the Lusitania would have a devastating effect on the California wine industry, the third to befall it? The book touches on legal fights over land and water, and sometimes can read as one of the briefs the law firm files in modern land and water disputes.
Kevin Starr, recognized as the greatest historian of California, wrote a few months before his death: “A tour de force of scholarship, fine writing, and multifaceted format, Crush is destined to earn a place among the classics of wine literature and California literature.” California Poet Laureate Dana Gioia has written, “Crush is simply superb—both as history and story-telling. The Paris tasting and its aftermath was a transformative moment in California’s cultural history. This immensely readable book captures the excitement, the fun, and the astonishment of the event.”
