A phone call at two thirty in the morning is never good news. Lucie Montgomery's semiestranged brother, Eli, calls her in France to tell her their father, Leland, has been killed in a hunting accident on the family's five-hundred-acre Virginia vineyard just as the fall harvest is about to begin. By the time he calls, Eli has already made funeral arrangements with what Lucie argues is indecent haste.

In these fascinating interviews, winemakers from the United States and abroad clarify the complex process of converting grapes into wine, with more than forty vintners candidly discussing how a combination of talent, passion, and experience shape the outcome of their individual wines. Each winemaker details their personal approach to the various steps required to convert grapes into wine. Natalie Berkowitz speaks to winemakers from different backgrounds...

At the Montgomery Estate Vineyard in Atoka, Virginia, Lucie Montgomery and winemaker Quinn Santori have decided to make champagne, a first for the vineyard. But then Gino Tomassi, Quinn's uncle, turns up on their doorstep one afternoon, demanding help in solving the mystery of what happened to Zara Tomassi, the first wife of his grandfather, who died in a San Francisco hotel in 1923 under suspicious circumstances-- the day after President Warren Harding...

Mackenzie Dienes seems to have it all - a beautiful home, close friends and a successful career as an elite winemaker with the family winery. There's just one problem - it's not her family, it's her husband's. In fact, everything in her life is tied to him - his mother is the closest thing to a mom that she's ever had, their home is on the family compound, his sister is her best friend. So when she and her husband admit their marriage is over, her...

When a tornado rips through Montgomery Estate Vineyard, it not only destroys some of Lucie Montgomery's newest grapevines, it also unearths an old grave. When the corpse is identified as a former business associate of Lucie's father, he quickly becomes the prime suspect. To make matters worse, Lucie's winemaker is accused of abusing migrant workers, and a Civil War re-enactor is shot with live ammunition on her property. As Lucie pieces together the...

"A business magnate calls on wine expert Benjamin Cooker to kickstart his new wine business in Beaujolais, sparking bitter rivalries. Can the Winemaker Detective and his assistant keep calculating real estate agents, taciturn winegrowers, dubious wine merchants and suspicious deaths from delaying delivery of the world-famous Beaujolais Nouveau?"--

The second installment in the delightful, internationally acclaimed series featuring Bruno, Chief of Police: When a bevy of winemakers descend on Saint-Denis the idyllic town finds itself the center of an intense drama, with suspicious fires at the agricultural research station that is working on genetically-modified crops.
 
Two young men—Max, an environmentalist who hopes to make organic wine, and Fernando, the...

"When Lucie Montgomery attends a Thanksgiving weekend party for friends and neighbors at Hawthorne Castle, an honest-to-goodness castle owned by the Avery family, the last great newspaper dynasty in America and owner of the Washington Tribune, she doesn't expect the festive occasion to end in death. During the party, Prescott Avery, the 95-year old family patriarch, invites Lucie to his fabulous wine cellar where he offers to pay any price for a cache...

"Margot Noble needs some relief from the stress of running the family winery with her brother. Enter Luke: sexy, charming, and best of all in the too-small world of Napa, a stranger. The chemistry between them is undeniable, and Margot is delighted that she lucked into the perfect one-night stand she'll never have to see again. That is, until the winery's newest hire, Luke, walks in the next morning. Margot is determined to keep things purely professional,...