77. Lettie Teague, “The State of Fine-Wine Auction Houses: Less Flash, More Fire,” Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2013.
78. Peter D. Meltzer, “Worldwide Wine Auction Revenues Fall in 2012,” Wine Spectator, January 15, 2013.
79. Benjamin Wallace, “Château Sucker,” Vanity Fair, July 2012.
80. Mike Steinberger, “Going, Going, Gone … for 11M,” Financial Times, June 9, 2006.
81. Howard G. Goldberg, “Acker Starts Season with $10M Cellar,” Decanter, January 18, 2006.
82. Peter Hellman, “The Crusade Against Counterfeits,” Wine Spectator, December 15, 2009.
83. Jay McInerney, “His Magnum Is Bigger Than Yours,” The Juice (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012).
84. Mosi Secret, “A Koch Brother, on a Crusade Against Counterfeit Rare Wines, Takes the Stand,” New York Times, December 13, 2003.
85. CBS Sunday Morning, “Counterfeit Wine: A Vintage Crime,” interview with William I. Koch, December 22, 2013, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/counterfeit-wine-a-vintage-crime/.
86. The Salt, NPR, The Kitchen Sisters, “How Atomic Wine Particles Helped Solve a Wine Fraud Mystery,” June 3, 2014, www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/06/03/318241738/how-atomic-particles-became-the-smoking-gun-in-wine-fraud-mystery.
87. Sausalito Cellars website, recovered from The Wayback Machine, http://web.archive.org/web/20001018174123/http://www.sausalitocellars.com/.
88. Brian O. Parker, interview with author. Parker showed author a copy of the time sheet.
12. THE STRUGGLE FOR RECOGNITION
89. Proceedings of the Farmers’ Club from the Annual Report of the Institute of the City of New York, 1862, 86–87.
90. Daily Alta California, Vol. 12, No. 3900, October 17, 1860.
91. Proceedings, pp. 86–87.
92. Pinney, 257.
93. Pacific Wine and Spirit Review, February 6, 1893.
94. Carosso quoting Arpad Haraszthy, p. 132. S.B.V.C, Third Viticultural Convention, 1884, p. 140. Proceedings of the California Pure Food Congress.
95. California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences, December 2, 1859.
96. California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences, December 16, 1875.
97. Sacramento Daily Union, April 21, 1870.
98. Garcia deeded the vineyard to Pierre Sainsevain a few months later and Jean Louis Sainsevain’s name soon appeared in the deed, according to Black. On June 27, 1873, Hellman bought back the vineyard from Garcia and J. L. Sainsevain, according to Black. Hellman brought in partners, including former governor John G. Downey, also a founder of the Farmers and Merchants Bank, his cousin, the dry goods merchant Isaiah M. Hellman, and Benjamin Dreyfus, the proprietor of B. Dreyfus & Co., a large wine concern.
99. Daily Alta California, July 20, 1870.
100. Daily Alta California, September 18, 1871.
101. Charles Sullivan, “Wine in California: The Early Years, Los Angeles, 1850–1870. Part I,” Wayward Tendrils, vol. 21, 2011.
102. Daily Alta California, Vol. 9, July 11, 1857.
103. Sacramento Daily Union, Vol. 17, July 26, 1859.
104. Daily Alta Californian, February 16, 1858.
105. John Hittell, Resources of California: Comprising Agriculture, Mining, Geography, Climate, &c., and the Past and Future Development of the State (San Francisco, New York: A. Roman and Company, 1869), 204.
106. Los Angeles Herald, September 16, 1874.
107. Benjamin Truman, Semi-Tropical California: Its Climate, Healthfulness, Productiveness, and Scenery (San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Co., 1874), 198.
108. Southern California Horticulturist, vol. 1, no. 1, 1877.
109. Herbert B. Leggett, Early History of Wine Production in California (San Francisco: The Wine Institute, 1941), 61.
110. Frances Dinkelspiel, Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California (New York: St. Martins Press, 2008), 88.
111. Hellman’s purchase of the Cucamonga Vineyard was the start of a sideline business in winemaking. In the late 1870s he helped Matthew Keller, the proprietor of the 100-acre Rising Sun Vineyard in Los Angeles, restructure his debt and put his operation on a better financial footing. In 1882, Hellman was among the group that invested $500,000 in the San Gabriel Winery. After Shorb died in 1896, Hellman took over as president. His Farmers and Merchants Bank carried the mortgage, and after Shorb’s widow tried to claim unsuccessfully in court that her husband had coerced her to co-sign the note, the bank foreclosed on the property in 1901. A short time later, Henry Huntington bought the land. It is now the home of The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, CA. Hellman was also part of the syndicate that bought a controlling interest in the California Wine Association in 1901.
112. Pinney, From the Beginnings to Prohibition, 290.
113. Dreyfus took over management of the Cucamonga Vineyard in 1878. One of the first things he did was fire Jean Louis Sainsevain and install his own vineyard manager. Dreyfus gave Sainsevain 30,000 gallons as severance, according to Norton B. Stern and William Kramer in “Benjamin Dreyfus: The Wine Tycoon of Anaheim,” Western State Jewish Historical Quarterly, vol. XLIV: 3/4, Spring/Summer 2012, 15–31.
114. Ernest Peninou and Gail Unzelman, The California Wine Association and Its Member Wineries, 1894–1920 (Santa Rosa, CA: Nomis Press, 2000), 50.
115. Pinney, From the Beginnings to Prohibition, 311.
116. Ibid., 313.
117. Ibid., 304.
118. Ibid., 322.
119. Ibid., 322.
120. Ibid., 322.
121. Ernest Peninou, Leland Stanford’s Great Vina Ranch, 1881–1919 (San Francisco: Yolo Hills Viticultural Society, 1991), 32–40.
122. Street, 242.
123. Peninou, Leland Stanford’s Great Vina Ranch, 38.
124. Ibid., 45.
125. Ibid., 51.
126. Alberta Mary Snell, Viticulture in California from 1870 to 1900: A Chapter in the Economic History of California, thesis, UC Berkeley, 1926.
13. THE ERA OF THE GREAT SAN FRANCISCO WINE HOUSES
127. Peninou and Unzelman, 25.
128. Pacific Wine and Spirit Review, vol. 30, June 6, 1893.
129. Pacific Wine and Spirit Review, May 6, 1893.
14. THE WINE WAR
130. California Wine Association letter to stockholders, February 1903, MSS 300, Book 5, California Historical Society.
131. California Wine Association records, California Historical Society, Box 1.
132. Peninou and Unzelman, 38.
133. Christopher Carlsmith, “Percy Tredegar Morgan, 1862–1920, Portrait of a Stanford Trustee,” Sandstone & Tile, Stanford History Review, vol. 28, no. 3, Fall 2004.
134. Peninou and Unzelman, 34.
135. Undated, unidentified newspaper clip in Percy T. Morgan scrapbook.
136. Peninou and Unzelman, 4.
137. Undated, unidentified newspaper clip in Percy T. Morgan scrapbook.
138. Thomas Pinney, The Makers of American Wine: A Record of Two Hundred Years (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 73 (illustration).
139. Pacific Wine and Spirit Review, March 7, 1896.
140. Peninou and Unzelman, 74.
141. Ibid., 75.
142. Pacific Wine and Spirit Review, July 22, 1896.
143. Peninou and Unzelman, 76.
144. Pacific Wine and Spirit Review, September 30, 1898.
145. Pacific Wine and Spirit Review, June 24, 1897.
146. Peninou and Unzelman, 77.
147. Ibid.
148. Jack W. Florence, Sr., Legacy of a Village: The Italian Swiss Colony and People of Asti, California (Phoenix, AZ: Raymond Court Press), 64.
149. S
an Francisco Chronicle, May 14, 1898.
15. EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE
150. San Francisco Blue Book, 1905, p. 176, Internet archive.
151. Charles L. Sullivan, “The Great Wine Quake,” Wayward Tendrils Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 2, p. 3.
152. San Francisco Call, Vol. 99, No. 152, May 1, 1906.
153. Although no papers from Lachman & Jacobi remain, family influences may have played a small role in the firm’s decision to join forces with the CWA, which was then controlled by Isaias Hellman and a syndicate of investors. Hellman’s son, Marco Hellman, had married Frances Jacobi, the daughter of Frederick Jacobi, the co-owner of Lachman & Jacobi, in 1898. The author is their great-granddaughter.
154. Pinney, From the Beginnings to Prohibition, 236.
155. Pacific Wine and Spirit Review, April/May 1906 edition.
156. San Francisco Call, Vol. 99, No. 143, April 22, 1906.
157. San Francisco Call, Vol. 99, No. 155, May 4, 1906.
158. Pacific Wine and Spirit Review, Calamity Edition, April/May 1906.
159. Peninou and Unzelman, 103–104.
160. Ibid., 104.
161. “Everything you wanted to know about Point Molate in a 5 minute tour,” by the Richmond Museum of History.
162. Jackson Graves to Isaias W. Hellman, January 8, 1915, Huntington Library.
163. Graves to Hellman, January 3, 1916,
164. Graves to Hellman, August 21, 1916.
165. This included the original 580-acre vineyard and an adjacent 534-acre parcel upon which the Rains house sat.
166. Graves to Hellman, January 19, 1916.
167. Graves to Hellman, October 25, 1916.
168. Graves to Hellman, January 22, 1917.
16. THEFT AND DECEPTION
169. Mark Anderson interview with author, April 5, 2010.
170. Bulwa, San Francisco Chronicle, May 29, 2007.
171. International Food and Wine Society v. Mark Anderson, Marin County Superior Court.
172. ATF telephone interview with John Fox on August 8, 2006.
173. Marin County vs. Mark Anderson, Marin County Superior Court.
174. October 13, 2005, interview by ATF Agent Parker with Jack Krystal.
175. October 13, 2005, interview by ATF Agent Parker with Linda Hothem.
176. The United States of America v. Mark C. Anderson, June 24, 2011.
177. ATF Agent Brian Parker interview with Jason Greer.
17. DISMAY
178. ETS Laboratories would determine that Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot were resilient to heat shock, while Syrah was not.
179. Wine Spectator, February 24, 2006.
180. Cathy Corison interview with the author, July 2014.
18. THE TRAP IS SET
181. The United States of America v. Mark C. Anderson, affidavit filed by Lapham June 24, 2011, 6.
182. Tom Johnson interview with author, December 2012.
183. Neither Sausalito police nor ATF officials have implicated Witten in Anderson’s crimes. While it seems hard to believe she didn’t have questions about the source of the million dollars suddenly at Anderson’s disposal, there is no evidence to suggest she was any part of Anderson’s operation.
184. Brian Parker interview with author.
185. The United States of America v. Mark C. Anderson, filed November 10, 2009.
186. The United States of America v. Mark C. Anderson, Declaration of Mark J. Reichel, June 24, 2011.
187. The United States of America v. Mark C. Anderson, Court document #163-1, 6. U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California.
188. Anderson letter to author, March 12, 2010.
189. Ibid.
190. The United States of America v. Mark C. Anderson, Anderson affidavit, March 29, 2011.
191. The United States of America v. Mark C. Anderson, Anderson affidavit, March 29, 2011, 3.
19. DELAY
192. Lapham interview with author, September 19, 2014. Lapham said he was watching Judge Karlton’s face during Hall’s testimony and saw him raise his eyebrows.
193. Anderson letter to author, January 18, 2013.
EPILOGUE
194. Ruth Teiser and Catherine Harroun, Winemaking in California (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983), 160.
195. Peninou and Unzelman, 12.
APPENDIX
196. This is a simplified history meant to show the major owners and managers of the vineyard.
197. Black, 262.
SOURCES
ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS
Benjamin Hayes scrapbooks, particularly volume 14, Bancroft Library.
Isaias W. Hellman papers, California Historical Society.
Jackson Graves papers, Huntington Library.
Vignes Family papers, Seaver Center for Western History Research.
California Wine Association Records, California Historical Society.
Los Angeles County court documents, Huntington Library.
San Bernardino County land records, San Bernardino Archives.
Percy Morgan scrapbook, private collection.
Wayback Machine, Internet Archive.
NEWSPAPER ACCOUNTS
The author consulted nineteenth- and twentieth-century accounts in the following newspapers and magazines.
Daily Alta California
Decanter
California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences
Los Angeles Star
Los Angeles Daily Times
Los Angeles Times
Marin Scope
Napa Valley Register
St. Helena Star
San Francisco Call
San Francisco Chronicle
Semi-Tropic California
Pacific Wine and Spirit Review
Wine Spectator
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