First of all I want to thank Regina Ryan, my agent, who has gone above and beyond in helping me shape and improve my book proposals to be be well received, and then finding a superb publisher who does beautiful work with the books they create. I would also like to thank my friend Taylor John Caron, manager at my local wine supply shop, for his friendship, appreciation for my wines, and the feedback he has given me to continue learning about the craft of winemaking. Although they never made wine and didn’t drink it, my father taught me how to garden and to love producing my own crops while my mother taught me to process and cook those crops. Without those lessons I might never have expanded into making wine.
Jen along with her crew, Bobby and Nicole, at Jennifer Olson Photography Studio did a magnificent job of making this book beautiful with spectacular photos. My editor, Sarah Guare, and art director, Michaela Jebb, helped make this a much better book than I could have done by myself. Finally I want to thank my son, Darrick Bender, the cheesemonger who did the wine and cheese pairings for this book and helped me make wine while he was growing up to be such a fine young man.