Bookworm, Issue 31

The Book: Yoko: a biography by David Sheff

Despite a long list of accomplishments as a conceptual artist and musician, Yoko Ono remains more widely known as John Lennon’s widow and maligned as the woman who “broke up” The Beatles. While her relationship with Lennon was deeply meaningful and transformative for them both, author David Sheff’s biography expands on Yoko’s life before, beside, and after John Lennon. Here, Sheff reveals a fascinating woman who has spent a lifetime pushing artistic boundaries and advocating for peace.

The author’s retelling of Yoko’s story is largely sympathetic, unlike many other accounts. Sheff speculates that without Yoko at John’s side, there might be no Abbey Road or Let It Be. At that time, John was “miserable” and ready to leave the band. The author met Yoko and John in New York City when he was assigned to interview them for Playboy magazine. He imbedded with the couple for nearly three weeks in September, 1980. Just months later, on December 8, John was assassinated. In the years that followed, Sheff and Yoko became good friends.

My takeaway from this biography is Yoko’s resilience, and so I’ve paired the book with an old-vine, red wine from California that is brimming with personality, flavor intensity, and freshness. The grapes used to make this wine come from vines planted in the 1890s that have survived 130 years of natural and human adversity.

Yoko is divided into three sections: Yoko’s childhood in Japan and early years as an emerging avant-garde artist abroad; her 14-year relationship with John Lennon; and her professional and personal life after Lennon’s death with their son Sean. While Yoko was born into privilege, a lonely adolescence and the horrors of WWII prompted her to retreat into her own mind. Her imagination saves her, and this will define her artistic career moving forward.

Yoko’s artwork challenges traditional definitions of fine art, but the author skillfully makes sense of it and connects it to Yoko’s personal struggles and to societal forces. From childhood trauma and separation from her daughter Kyoko to the political and cultural upheaval of the 1960s, Yoko responded to the world around her. She encountered racism and misogyny because “she never fit the stereotype of the obedient, passive Asian wife or the seductive geisha,” and she was especially reviled because of her relationship with John.

Sheff doesn’t dwell on Yoko’s flaws, but he does weave her workaholic tendencies, failed relationships, dependence on advice from psychics, and her and John’s heroin use into the narrative. And the author writes sensitively about the years following John’s death when Yoko was overcome with grief and feared for her own and Sean’s safety. With John, she felt secure, understood, and loved; alone, she would have to work “(her) way back into the world.”

Despite hardship, Yoko continued making experimental art and music that was sometimes revolutionary, other times amusing. Her work exemplified her belief that anyone can be an artist because art happens in the mind. Yoko is known for her “instruction pieces,” which involve audience participation. In one of the most influential, called Cut Piece, people use a scissors to snip away her clothing. Other pieces offer quieter experiences, like Earth Piece, whose instructions are to “Listen to the sound of the Earth turning.”

Yoko is now 92-years-old and retired to upstate New York, but her creativity and activism continue to move people, myself included. A recent retrospective, Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, October 18, 2025, through February 22, 2026. And I highly recommend the movie One to One: John & Yoko, which chronicles the couple’s life in Greenwich Village in the early ‘70s and includes restored footage of their only concert together. To avoid spoiling the film, I will only say that the beauty, humor, and outrage that the film communicates caused me to cry (several times).

The Wine: Bedrock Wine Co., Evangelho Vineyard Heritage, Red Wine, 2022, Contra Costa County, California $44.99

The alchemy and allure of ancient vines cannot be denied, especially when the resulting wine fulfills the wanderings of the imagination. Concentrated, complex, and ever so energetic. Medium purple with aromas of ripe red plum and raspberry, blackberry bramble, blueberry jam, black olive, prune, menthol, cinnamon, clove, black pepper, leather, and cocoa powder. Elevated acidity, medium-grained tannins, and pronounced flavor intensity all lead toward a long, fruit- and spice-forward finish. Truly, outstanding. 14.5% ABV.

A field blend of grapes from the historic Evangelho Vineyard. Planted in the 1890s, now owned and farmed by Bedrock Wine Co. Mostly Zinfandel with Mourvèdre, Carignan, Alicante Bouschet, Grand Noir, Palomino, and even fruit from a single Clairette Blanche vine.

Native yeast ferment in open-top, stainless steel tanks, then aged in 600-gallon neutral oak foudres.

The people behind Bedrock Wine Co. see themselves as “historic preservationists” with a role in protecting and rehabilitating old vineyards. They practice regenerative farming and do not irrigate or till the vineyards. The Bedrock website is a wealth of additional information.

Why the pairing works:

Against all odds, both Yoko Ono and the Evangelho Vineyard have survived, even thrived. Yoko’s art and music and activism remains radical and relevant today, and the historic Evangelho vineyard is treasured for producing world-class wines. Once overshadowed, the two are now celebrated.

Generations of pruning cuts on the gnarled, un-trellised vines in the Evangelho vineyard are evidence of their longevity and resilience. The own-rooted vines grow in 40-foot-deep banks of beach sand along the Sacramento River delta. The vineyard is like no other – a “viticultural survivor” and an “agricultural island” in the midst of suburban Antioch, California.

That the sandy soil is an advantage in this hot and dry climate might come as a surprise, but it produces vines with very deep roots to reach water and nutrients. And the soil protects the vines from phylloxera because the pest cannot survive in the sand. Humans, not nature, are the biggest threat to these 130-year-old vines.

Portuguese immigrants planted the original vineyard in the 1890s, and eventually it passed to Manuel Evangelho. He sold it to Pacific Gas and Electric Company in 1952 (who built a power plant next door), but smartly maintained ownership of several acres, as well as a long-term lease to continue farming. Manuel’s son Frank, a diligent caretaker, took over in 1963 and weathered poor markets, encroaching suburban development, and infrastructure threats. Today, Bedrock Wine Co. owns and farms the Evangehlo Vineyard and is committed to preserving it.

Yoko, too, is resilient. Depression, WWII, racism, misogyny, public scorn, John’s assassination, threats to her life, betrayal, and blackmail are all part of her life story. But she never quit making pioneering and provocative art. “And while it’s true that when Yoko met John, he was already at the pinnacle of his fame,” author David Sheff reminds readers, “she was the artist whose work he came to see.”

Always, Yoko remained true to herself and fearlessly pursued her own ideas. Now in her ninth decade, her work continues to command attention – like our paired wine’s flavor intensity and freshness – both with lasting influence.

Visit the Historical Vineyard Society to learn more about California’s old vines and efforts to preserve them.

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Bookworm, Issue 30