History of American wine
Encyclopedia
The History of American wine
began when first Europeans to explore parts of North America
which they called Vinland
because of the profusion of grape vines they found. However, settlers would later discover that the wine made from the various native grapes had flavors which were unfamiliar and which they did not like. This led to repeated efforts to grow familiar Vitis vinifera
varieties. The first vines of Vitis vinifera origin planted in what is now the United States
were planted in Senecu
in 1629, which is near the present day town of San Antonio, New Mexico
.
However, the discovery in 1802 of the native Catawba
grape led to very successful wine-making in Ohio. By 1842 Nicholas Longworth was growing 1200 acres (4.9 km²) of Catawba grapes and making the country's first Sparkling wine
. In 1858, The Illustrated London News described Catawba as "a finer wine of the hock
species and flavor than any hock that comes from the Rhine" and wrote that sparkling Catawba "transcends the Champagne of France." But the successful operations in Ohio ceased when fungus disease destroyed the vineyards. Some growers responded by moving north to the shores of Lake Erie
and its islands, where mildew
was not a problem. The Finger Lakes region of New York State developed a successful wine-making industry beginning in the early 1860s when the Pleasant Valley Wine Company
began using carefully selected derivatives of native grapes to produce wine. In 1865 the Urbana Wine Company (which marketed its wine under the Gold Seal label) was established. 1880 saw the establishment of the Taylor Wine Company. By the late 19th century, wines from the Finger Lakes were winning prizes at wine tastings in Europe.
, which is called Criolla or "colonialized European" in South America
. Although a Vitis vinifera, it is a grape of "very modest" quality. The first secular vineyard was established in Los Angeles
by an immigrant from Bordeaux
, Jean-Louis Vignes
. Dissatisfied with the Mission grape, he imported vines from France. By 1851 he had 40,000 vines under cultivation and was producing 1000 barrels (119,240.5 l) of wine per year.
Major wine production shifted to the Sonoma Valley in northern California largely because of its excellent climate for growing grapes. General Mariano Vallejo
, former commander of the presidio of Sonoma, became the first large-scale winegrower in the valley. In 1857, Agoston Haraszthy
bought 520 acres (2.1 km²) near Vallejo's vineyards. In contrast to Vallejo and most others, Haraszthy planted his vines on dry slopes and did not irrigate them. Today, the value of dry farming to creating superior wine is generally recognized.
Haraszthy has been called the "Father of Modern Viticulture in California." He wrote Report on Grapes and Wines in California, a manual on vineyard
management and wine making procedures in which he urged experimentation with different grape varieties in different soils and different parts of the state. He also urged the government to collect cuttings from Europe and distribute them to growers in California. In 1861, the State Legislature commissioned Haraszthy to travel to Europe and purchase a diversity of grapevines. He did so, and obtained 100,000 vines of 300 different varieties.
In 1852, Charles LeFranc established what became the very successful Almaden Vineyards
, where he planted Cabernet Sauvignon
, Pinot Noir
, Semillon
, and many others. LeFranc produced good wine as did his son-in-law, Paul Masson
. In 1854, John Patchett
planted the first commercial vineyard in Napa Valley and established the first winery there in 1858. In 1861 Charles Krug
who previously had worked for Agoston Haraszthy and Patchett founded his namesake winery in St. Helena and began making his own wine. Originally a Prussian political dissident, Krug learned the trade of the vintner as an apprentice to Haraszthy in the Sonoma Valley. The land on which Krug founded his winery was part of his wife's (Carolina Bale's) dowry. Krug became an important leader of winemaking in the Napa Valley. He was also a mentor for Karl Wente, Charles Wetmore and Jacob Beringer, all of whom became important vintners.
Early on, the Napa Valley demonstrated leadership in producing quality wine. At the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, Napa Valley wines won 20 of the 34 medals or awards (including four gold medals) won by California entries. This was the high point that was followed by 40 years of natural and human-caused disasters. Severe frosts, the outbreak of the phylloxera
louse which destroyed Vitis vinifera vines, an economic depression, the San Francisco earthquake that destroyed an estimated 30000000 gal of wine in storage, and the disaster of national Prohibition
from 1920 through 1933.
and Alicante Ganzin
.
Following Prohibition, American wine making reemerged in very poor condition. Many talented winemakers had died, vineyards had been neglected or replanted in poor quality grapes, and Prohibition had changed Americans' taste in wines. Consumers now demanded cheap "jug wine" (so-called dago red) and sweet, fortified (high alcohol) wine. Before Prohibition dry table wines outsold sweet wines by three to one, but after the ratio was more than reversed. In 1935, 81% of California's production was sweet wines. The reputation of the state's wines suffered accordingly.
During the 1970s a system was established to identify appellations of origins, using the term American Viticultural Area
s (AVA). An AVA guarantees that a minimum of 85% of the wine in the bottle comes from grapes grown in that AVA. The use of individual vineyard
names guarantees that 95% of any wine using a vineyard name must be made from grapes grown in that vineyard, and from within a recognized AVA. There are 165 AVAs, of which 93 are in California.
Leading the way out of the abyss was research conducted at the University of California, Davis
. Faculty published reports on which varieties of grapes grew best in which regions of the state, held seminars on winemaking techniques, consulted with grape growers and winemakers, offered academic degrees in viticulture, and promoted the production of quality wines. The results of their success would be demonstrated decades later at the Paris wine tasting in 1976, the nation's 200th anniversary.
American wine
American wine has been produced for over 300 years. Today, wine production is undertaken in all fifty states, with California producing 89 percent of all US wine...
began when first Europeans to explore parts of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
which they called Vinland
Vinland
Vinland was the name given to an area of North America by the Norsemen, about the year 1000 CE.There is a consensus among scholars that the Vikings reached North America approximately five centuries prior to the voyages of Christopher Columbus...
because of the profusion of grape vines they found. However, settlers would later discover that the wine made from the various native grapes had flavors which were unfamiliar and which they did not like. This led to repeated efforts to grow familiar Vitis vinifera
Vitis vinifera
Vitis vinifera is a species of Vitis, native to the Mediterranean region, central Europe, and southwestern Asia, from Morocco and Portugal north to southern Germany and east to northern Iran....
varieties. The first vines of Vitis vinifera origin planted in what is now the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
were planted in Senecu
Senecú
The Piro Pueblo of Senecú was the southernmost occupied pueblo in New Mexico prior to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. It was located on the west bank of the Rio Grande within sight of San Pasqual. It may have also been within the proximity of the Black Mesa, which is near San Marcial...
in 1629, which is near the present day town of San Antonio, New Mexico
San Antonio, New Mexico
San Antonio is an unincorporated community in Socorro County, New Mexico, United States, roughly in the center of the state. The entire population of the county is around 18,000; the population of San Antonio is hard to pin down because the area is somewhat ill-defined.San Antonio is nowadays...
.
However, the discovery in 1802 of the native Catawba
Catawba (grape)
Catawba is a red hybrid grape variety used for wine as well as juice, jams and jellies. The grape can have a pronounced musky or "foxy" flavor. Grown predominantly on the East Coast of the United States, this purplish-red grape is a likely cross of the native American Vitis labrusca and another...
grape led to very successful wine-making in Ohio. By 1842 Nicholas Longworth was growing 1200 acres (4.9 km²) of Catawba grapes and making the country's first Sparkling wine
Sparkling wine
Sparkling wine is a wine with significant levels of carbon dioxide in it making it fizzy. The carbon dioxide may result from natural fermentation, either in a bottle, as with the méthode champenoise, in a large tank designed to withstand the pressures involved , or as a result of carbon dioxide...
. In 1858, The Illustrated London News described Catawba as "a finer wine of the hock
Hock (wine)
Hock is an English term for German wine, sometimes wine from the Rhine regions and sometimes all German wine. It is short for the now obsolete word hockamore. The term is a corruption of the name of the German town of Hochheim on the Main river in the Rheingau wine region...
species and flavor than any hock that comes from the Rhine" and wrote that sparkling Catawba "transcends the Champagne of France." But the successful operations in Ohio ceased when fungus disease destroyed the vineyards. Some growers responded by moving north to the shores of Lake Erie
Lake Erie
Lake Erie is the fourth largest lake of the five Great Lakes in North America, and the tenth largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has the shortest average water residence time. It is bounded on the north by the...
and its islands, where mildew
Mildew
Mildew refers to certain kinds of molds or fungi.In Old English, it meant honeydew , and later came to mean mildew in the modern sense of mold or fungus....
was not a problem. The Finger Lakes region of New York State developed a successful wine-making industry beginning in the early 1860s when the Pleasant Valley Wine Company
Pleasant Valley Wine Company
Pleasant Valley Wine Company, also known as Great Western Winery, is a historic winery complex located in the Hamlet of Rheims in the Town of Urbana in Steuben County, New York. The complex consists of nine historic buildings constructed of fieldstone...
began using carefully selected derivatives of native grapes to produce wine. In 1865 the Urbana Wine Company (which marketed its wine under the Gold Seal label) was established. 1880 saw the establishment of the Taylor Wine Company. By the late 19th century, wines from the Finger Lakes were winning prizes at wine tastings in Europe.
California wine
In California, the first vineyard and winery was established by Spanish missionaries in 1769. California has two native grape varieties, but they make very poor quality wine. Therefore, the missionaries used the Mission grapeMission (grape)
Mission grapes are a variety of Vitis vinifera introduced from Spain to the western coasts of North and South America in the 16th century by Catholic New World missionaries for use in making sacramental, table, and fortified wines.-History:...
, which is called Criolla or "colonialized European" in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
. Although a Vitis vinifera, it is a grape of "very modest" quality. The first secular vineyard was established in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
by an immigrant from Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
, Jean-Louis Vignes
Jean-Louis Vignes
Jean-Louis Vignes , or as he was known to his Mexican neighbors, "Don Luis del Aliso", was a French settler to the Los Angeles area during the Mexican era. He was the first commercial wine maker in California and one of the first men to import and plant European Vitis vinifera grapes in the state...
. Dissatisfied with the Mission grape, he imported vines from France. By 1851 he had 40,000 vines under cultivation and was producing 1000 barrels (119,240.5 l) of wine per year.
Major wine production shifted to the Sonoma Valley in northern California largely because of its excellent climate for growing grapes. General Mariano Vallejo
Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo
Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo was a Californian military commander, politician, and rancher. He was born a subject of Spain, performed his military duties as an officer of Mexico, and shaped the transition of California from a Mexican district to an American state...
, former commander of the presidio of Sonoma, became the first large-scale winegrower in the valley. In 1857, Agoston Haraszthy
Agoston Haraszthy
Agoston Haraszthy was a Hungarian-American traveler, writer, town-builder, and pioneer winemaker in Wisconsin and California, often referred to as the "Father of California Viticulture," or the "Father of Modern Winemaking in California"...
bought 520 acres (2.1 km²) near Vallejo's vineyards. In contrast to Vallejo and most others, Haraszthy planted his vines on dry slopes and did not irrigate them. Today, the value of dry farming to creating superior wine is generally recognized.
Haraszthy has been called the "Father of Modern Viticulture in California." He wrote Report on Grapes and Wines in California, a manual on vineyard
Vineyard
A vineyard is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice...
management and wine making procedures in which he urged experimentation with different grape varieties in different soils and different parts of the state. He also urged the government to collect cuttings from Europe and distribute them to growers in California. In 1861, the State Legislature commissioned Haraszthy to travel to Europe and purchase a diversity of grapevines. He did so, and obtained 100,000 vines of 300 different varieties.
In 1852, Charles LeFranc established what became the very successful Almaden Vineyards
Almaden Vineyards
Almaden Vineyards is a winery located in Escalon and Madera, California. They claim to be California's oldest winery.Their original location was at the Old Almaden Winery south of San José between Los Gatos and Almaden...
, where he planted Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. It is grown in nearly every major wine producing country among a diverse spectrum of climates from Canada's Okanagan Valley to Lebanon's Beqaa Valley...
, Pinot Noir
Pinot Noir
Pinot noir is a black wine grape variety of the species Vitis vinifera. The name may also refer to wines created predominantly from Pinot noir grapes...
, Semillon
Sémillon
Sémillon is a golden-skinned grape used to make dry and sweet white wines, most notably in France and Australia.-History:The origin of the Sémillon grape is hard to determine. It is known that it first arrived in Australia in the early 19th century and by the 1820s the grape covered over 90 percent...
, and many others. LeFranc produced good wine as did his son-in-law, Paul Masson
Paul Masson
Paul Masson was an early pioneer of California viticulture and successful popularizer of Californian sparkling wine.-Biography:...
. In 1854, John Patchett
John Patchett
John Patchett was the first person to plant a commercial vineyard and build a commercial wine cellar in the Napa Valley. Patchett planted his vineyard in 1854 and started making wine in 1857. Patchett established his winery in Napa in 1858....
planted the first commercial vineyard in Napa Valley and established the first winery there in 1858. In 1861 Charles Krug
Charles Krug
Charles Krug was among the original pioneers of winemaking in the Napa Valley, and was the founder of the winery of the same name. Krug immigrated to the United States from Prussia in 1851 and served as an apprentice winemaker for both Agoston Haraszthy and then John Patchett before establishing...
who previously had worked for Agoston Haraszthy and Patchett founded his namesake winery in St. Helena and began making his own wine. Originally a Prussian political dissident, Krug learned the trade of the vintner as an apprentice to Haraszthy in the Sonoma Valley. The land on which Krug founded his winery was part of his wife's (Carolina Bale's) dowry. Krug became an important leader of winemaking in the Napa Valley. He was also a mentor for Karl Wente, Charles Wetmore and Jacob Beringer, all of whom became important vintners.
Early on, the Napa Valley demonstrated leadership in producing quality wine. At the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, Napa Valley wines won 20 of the 34 medals or awards (including four gold medals) won by California entries. This was the high point that was followed by 40 years of natural and human-caused disasters. Severe frosts, the outbreak of the phylloxera
Phylloxera
Grape phylloxera ; originally described in France as Phylloxera vastatrix; equated to the previously described Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, Phylloxera vitifoliae; commonly just called phylloxera is a pest of commercial grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America...
louse which destroyed Vitis vinifera vines, an economic depression, the San Francisco earthquake that destroyed an estimated 30000000 gal of wine in storage, and the disaster of national Prohibition
Prohibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...
from 1920 through 1933.
Prohibition
Some wineries managed to survive by making wine for religious services. However, grape growers prospered. Because making up to 200 gal of wine at home per year was legal, such production increased from an estimated 4000000 gal before Prohibition to 90000000 gal five years after the imposition of the law. Unfortunately, quality grapes do not ship well, so producers ripped out their vines and replaced them with tough but poor quality grapes such as Alicante BouschetAlicante Bouschet
Alicante Bouschet or Alicante Henri Bouschet is a wine grape variety that has been widely cultivated since 1866. It is a cross of Petit Bouschet and Grenache. Alicante is a teinturier, a grape with red flesh. It is one of the few teinturier grapes that belong to the Vitis vinifera species...
and Alicante Ganzin
Alicante Ganzin
Alicante Ganzin is a red French wine grape variety. Unlike most Vitis vinifera wine grapes, Alicante Ganzin is a teinturier with dark flesh that produces red juice...
.
Following Prohibition, American wine making reemerged in very poor condition. Many talented winemakers had died, vineyards had been neglected or replanted in poor quality grapes, and Prohibition had changed Americans' taste in wines. Consumers now demanded cheap "jug wine" (so-called dago red) and sweet, fortified (high alcohol) wine. Before Prohibition dry table wines outsold sweet wines by three to one, but after the ratio was more than reversed. In 1935, 81% of California's production was sweet wines. The reputation of the state's wines suffered accordingly.
During the 1970s a system was established to identify appellations of origins, using the term American Viticultural Area
American Viticultural Area
An American Viticultural Area is a designated wine grape-growing region in the United States distinguishable by geographic features, with boundaries defined by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau , United States Department of the Treasury....
s (AVA). An AVA guarantees that a minimum of 85% of the wine in the bottle comes from grapes grown in that AVA. The use of individual vineyard
Vineyard
A vineyard is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice...
names guarantees that 95% of any wine using a vineyard name must be made from grapes grown in that vineyard, and from within a recognized AVA. There are 165 AVAs, of which 93 are in California.
Leading the way out of the abyss was research conducted at the University of California, Davis
University of California, Davis
The University of California, Davis is a public teaching and research university established in 1905 and located in Davis, California, USA. Spanning over , the campus is the largest within the University of California system and third largest by enrollment...
. Faculty published reports on which varieties of grapes grew best in which regions of the state, held seminars on winemaking techniques, consulted with grape growers and winemakers, offered academic degrees in viticulture, and promoted the production of quality wines. The results of their success would be demonstrated decades later at the Paris wine tasting in 1976, the nation's 200th anniversary.
Further reading
- Clarke, Oz. Oz Clarke's New Encyclopedia of Wine. NY: Harcourt Brace , 1999.
- Johnson, Hugh. Vintage: The Story of Wine. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1989.
- Taber, George M. Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting that Revolutionized Wine. NY: Scribner, 2005.