💻 Join us in person OR online from near & far!
🚨 BOOK CLUB ALERT: You have more time to read!
Good news for anyone looking at the remaining pages and thinking, I am never going to finish this in time. 😂
We've extended the reading time and moved our first Book Club gathering to Monday, November 16!
A few readers asked for a little more time—Alta California is a substantial read—so we're giving everyone some breathing room.
And that means something else:
📖 It's NOT too late to join us!
For the inaugural Clementine Carter Book Club, we're reading Nick Neely's fascinating Alta California: From San Diego to San Francisco, A Journey on Foot to Rediscover the Golden State.
Neely retraces the route of the historic El Camino Real entirely on foot, traveling roughly 650 miles from San Diego to San Francisco. But this isn't simply a walking memoir. His journey becomes a way of exploring California itself—its landscape, ecology, Indigenous history, Spanish missions, development, mythology and the complicated layers of history beneath the California we know today.
The publisher describes this national bestseller as an account that captures the many layers of California's “fiendishly complex history.”
🌿🥾🍷 What will we talk about?
This is a book made for conversation.
We'll gather over wine to talk about the parts that fascinated us, challenged us, surprised us—or sent us down an entirely unexpected California-history rabbit hole.
Expect conversation about California's complicated past, the landscape itself, the mission system and El Camino Real, the people and communities Neely encounters, the relationship between walking and understanding place, and how the stories we inherit influence the way we see the place we call home.
And this is a book club, not English class. 😉
No quizzes. No essays. No need to arrive with profound literary analysis.
Read. Come curious. Bring the passages you loved, the things you questioned and the ideas you want to argue about over a glass of wine.
🌎 Near or far—you can join us.
One of the things we're especially excited about is making the Clementine Carter Book Club available beyond Los Alamos.
Can't make it to the tasting room?
Join us online! 💻🍷
We'll host meetings virtually as well, so friends and readers from near and far can be part of the conversation.
📚 Already borrowed a book?
Please confirm that you'll be attending our first meeting. This is especially important for everyone who borrowed a copy so Sonja knows who's joining us.
And if you haven't joined yet?
YOU STILL CAN! 🙋♀️📖🍷
📚 Clementine Carter Book Club
📖 Alta California — Nick Neely
📅 Monday, November 16, 2026
⏰ 5:00 PM
📍 In person at Clementine Carter Wines + online participation available
💌 PLEASE RSVP TO JOIN:
sonja@clementinecarterwines.com
Learn more about Alta California
Come for the book. Stay for the wine and conversation. 📚🍷✨
