Napa The Story of an American Eden by James Conaway

Just finished reading Napa The Story of an American Eden by James Conaway. It's a Steinbeckian tome that begins in 1964 and chronicles 25 years of events that occurred in Napa. The book begins with the story of Jack and Jamie Davis looking for property in Napa. (I was thinking---why begin there?) Perhaps it is to highlight the fact that in the 60's there were many people seeking a refuge from the successful business ventures that they were in, to start a winery in Napa. Conaway also fills in the gap between 1858 and 1964 by recalling that the first commercially made wine in Napa was done by John Patchett. The founders are listed as Charles Krug (1860), Jacob Schram (1862, Schramsberg Vineyards), Gustave Niebaum (1879, Inglenook), Georges de Latour (1899, Beaulieu Vineyard), Louis Michael Martini (1933), and Cesare Mondavi (1937, Sunny St. Helena, 1943, Charles Krug Winery). During that period, Napa suffered the ravages of phylloxera and Prohibition, which all but put an end to winemaking in Napa.
For the wineries that managed to survive those setbacks and made it into the 60's, Conaway spends some time talking about the "Inheritors" who included John Daniel of Inglenook, Hélène de Latour de Pins of Beaulieu, Louis Peter Martini, and the Mondavis, Robert, Mary, Helen and Peter. The next generation known as the Napa Valley Lucky Sperm club was comprised of the third generation inheritors such as Marcia and Robin Daniel, Dagmar de Pins, the Martinis and the Mondavis. He chronicles a period when big companies such as United Vintners and Heublein came into Napa to buy places like Inglenook and Beaulieu Vineyard.
In the two and a half decades that take the reader from the start of the book to the end, major accomplishments such as the creation of an agricultural preserve in Napa in 1968 and Judgement of Paris are given air time. Conaway devotes a lot of time in the last half of the book to the rift that occurred in the valley as more people came to Napa and chose winemaking as a lifestyle not a farming venture. This was new to me and many of the names were unfamiliar so it did take me two readings to sort out the struggle between the Napa Valley Vintners Association and the Napa Valley Grape Growers Association. To me, it read like a book that Steinbeck would write, only it's all factual, not a fiction. To find out who the members of the Gastronomic Order of the Nonsensical and Dissipatory (GONADS) were, you need to read the book! There were some characters in the valley of Napa!