Buena Vista hosts wine history author Charles Sullivan

Buena Vista Winery and proprietor Jean-Charles Boisset will host a champagne reception and book signing with Charles Sullivan, author of “Sonoma Wine and the Buena Vista Story,” from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, March 29, at the winery, 18000 Old Winery Road, Sonoma.

For the first time, a comprehensive book on the history of Sonoma wine and Buena Vista Winery is now available. “Sonoma Wine and the Buena Vista Story” ($34.95) takes readers on a journey from the beginning of California wine history when it started with 17th century Jesuits through two centuries of history – reliving moments that plagued California’s first commercial winery, such as the phylloxera plague and the dry years of prohibition to its revival and restoration since 2011 under Jean-Charles Boisset.

This exclusive appearance by Sullivan will take place in the historical Press House at Buena Vista Winery. The event is complimentary, and copies of the book will be available for purchase at the winery.

Sullivan has written more than 100 articles for major wine and food journals and is the author of many books on the subject of wine history, including “Napa Wine: A History from Mission Days to the Present” (1994; second edition 2008), “A Companion to California Wine: An Encyclopedia of Wine & Winemaking from the Mission Days to Present” (1998), and “Zinfandel: A History of a Grape and its Wine” (2003). Dubbed in the late 1970s “the modern historian of wine in California” by Wine Institute founder and dean of American wine writers Leon Adams, Sullivan’s 40-year contribution to the understanding of wine’s place in America, and how it got there, is inestimable.