Best of the Wine Country A Witty, Opinionated and Remarkably Useful Guide to California's Vinelands

9780942053340

0942053346

Don and Betty Martin have written more than twenty guidebooks on travel and wine, mostly under their DiscoverGuides and Pine Cone Press banners. When not tending to their publishing company in Las Vegas, they explore America and the world beyond, seeking new places and new experiences for their readers. Both are members of the Society of American Travel Writers. They are gold medal winners in the Best Guidebook category of the annual Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards, North America's most prestigious travel writing competition. Don, who provides most of the adjectives, has been a journalist since he was sixteen, when classmates elected him editor of his high school newspaper. (No one else wanted the job.) After school, he left his small family farm in Idaho, wandered about the country a bit, and then joined the Marine Corps. He was assigned as a military correspondent in the Orient and at bases in California. Back in civvies, he worked as a reporter, sports writer and editor for several West Coast newspapers, then he became associate editor of a San Francisco-based travel magazine. He left to establish Pine Cone Press, Inc., and now devotes his time to writing, travel and-for some odd reason-collecting squirrel and chipmunk artifacts. He has been a serious wine sipper for more than four decades and has written numerous wine articles for newspapers and magazines. Betty, a Chinese-American whose varied credentials have included a doctorate in pharmacy and a real estate broker's license, does much of the research, editing and photography for their books. She also has written travel articles for assorted newspapers and magazines and sold photos through a New York stock agency. Exhibiting a scholarly interest in wine, she has taken courses through the hospitality management program of Columbia (California) College and the Napa Valley Wine Library Association. Even though she has an excellent palate, she's not much of a wine drinker-thus leaving more Zinfandel for Don. When she isn't helping Don run DiscoverGuides she wanders the globe-with or without him. Her travels have taken her from Cuba to Antarctica.