Angels in the Cellar: Notes from a French Vineyard

On the verge of a complete breakdown, Peter Hahn quit his globe-trotting corporate job and laid down roots in the French countryside—determined to make a go of winegrowing.

Peter bought a run-down, four-hundred-year-old “pile of a house,” ten acres of woodland, and a neglected vineyard in the Vouvray region of the Loire Valley. Angels in the Cellar is his moving back to-nature story, chronicling the demanding but profoundly rewarding work of traditional winegrowing through the seasons—from pruning the vines to harvesting the grapes by hand to pressing and barreling them for fermentation.

An evocative, poetic account of a year spent working with nature, Angels in the Cellar is also a powerful repudiation of the global economy, hyper-consumption, and the impact of large-scale farming on the land and its ecosystems.

"A poetic diary of a year among the vines."—Alice Feiring, author of To Fall in Love, Drink This

"[Peter's] journey is real and visceral, and like Emerson he has the writer's skill to invite us into his world and show us his heart, his passion, his journey. Unplug, and join him and his family in a world you will not forget."—Tor Kenward, proprietor, TOR Wines; author of Reflections of a Vintner