Blood from a Stone

This is the story of how wine brought me back from the dead.
Thus begins Adam McHugh's transition through the ending of one career--as a hospice chaplain and grief counselor--into the discovery of a new life in wine among the grapevines of the Santa Ynez Valley of California.
This is the corkscrewing tale of how I got to Santa Ynez, eventually, and the questions that came up along the way, he continues. You and I are going to take a long wine tour together on our way there, and we will make plenty of stops for a glass and some local wine history. As you will see, I reached into the old, old story of wine in order to find my new story, which begins, as so many wine love stories do, in the French countryside. Most stories about religion and drink are stories of recovery. I'm not sure if mine isn't a story about recovery too.
Adam's story is one of being forced to reevaluate and remake his life when things fell apart. But more than that, it's a story about finding healing through the good gifts of wine, friends, and the beauty of wine country. Pour a glass and join the adventure from the south of France to Champagne to the California Central Coast.