Wine Industry

WINE INDUSTRY

WINE INDUSTRY. In the early nineteenth century Nicholas Longworth, an optimistic and eccentric settler of Cincinnati, raised eyebrows when he planted grapes on his farmlands in southwestern Ohio. On occasion, easterners had tried making wine but had disliked the taste; Longworth's wine, however, seemed palatable. Like many wine makers in the nineteenth century, including Thomas Jefferson, Longworth championed wine as a beverage of temperance, arguing that it was more civilized than distilled spirits. But the wine industry faced formidable challenges. For most of the nineteenth century, wine making was a small-scale, agrarian undertaking concentrated in eastern states. Demand was largely local and most Americans preferred spirits or beer, which were much cheaper, to wine. Until the late twentieth century, wine consumption was very low in the United States. The industry has always been composed of growers and vintners, although many industry members have engaged in both supplying and processing. The production of wine has proved land and labor intensive and therefore unattractive to farmers seeking easier profits. Wine making in the 1800s, furthermore, was hampered by crop diseases and insects. By the end of the century, however, the development of fungicides and other scientific advances fostered an increase in grape growing and wine making.

California Wine

Another important development was the rise of the wine industry in California, particularly northern California, in the late 1800s, when it became the country's leading wine-producing state. As did many other industries, the wine industry experienced consolidation during this period. The California Wine Association (CWA), founded in 1894, organized the industry in that state, and in what is sometimes referred to as the "wine war," aggressively cut prices to put its competitors out of business. The leaders of the wine industry became financiers instead of farmers and wine merchants. During this period, demand for wine moved from the country to the city, and because of the CWA's push for a standardized product, the public favored sweet, fortified wines at cheap prices. By the advent of Prohibition in 1919, most Americans viewed wine just as they did distilled spirits: as a mass-produced, intemperate beverage. Moreover, they regarded American wine as inferior to European wine. Wine, earlier respected as a beverage of moderation, now became an easy target for the temperance movement.

Prohibition and Afterward

Prohibition had a devastating impact on the wine industry. Growers converted vineyards to other crops and most wineries were abandoned. Over 1,000 commercial wineries existed before Prohibition, but at Repeal in 1933, only 150 remained. The industry had a much more difficult time recovering from Prohibition than did the brewing and distilling industries. In the several decades after Prohibition, American wine still had the reputation of being a cheap drink that "belonged in paper bags on skid row" (Lukacs, American Vintage, p. 94). The association between wine and spirits was strengthened during World War II when several large distillers aggressively entered the wine business. The distillers exited by the end of the 1940s, but the connection was cemented in the minds of many.

As did most other agriculturally based enterprises, wine making became a big business during the postwar years. The industry once again experienced consolidation, going from around 1,300 commercial wineries in 1936 to only 271 in 1960. In the East, the largest wineries could be found in the Finger Lakes region of New York. In California two companies, E. and J. Gallo and United Vinters, dominated the industry and in 1967 Gallo claimed its place, which it still holds, as the world's largest winery.

The Turn toward Wine

The ascendance of the wine industry began in the 1960s when prosperous and well-traveled Americans developed a taste for table wines, which transported wine consumption from the gutter into sophisticated and affluent homes. The Gallos participated in this shift when they began to plant premium grapes and strove for excellence in their wine making. Also influential was Robert Mondavi, another California wine producer, who designed his wines to taste like those of France. Mondavi and others were able to manipulate grapes and wines to achieve desired tastes. Unlike the European wine industry, which was built on craft and tradition, the post-Repeal wine industry in America was based on technology and science after Prohibition severed American wine makers' association with the past. In the 1960s and after, the industry relied on research and experimentation and was closely associated with agricultural researchers at several land-grant universities. Also, big corporations such as Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Schlitz Brewing entered the industry in hopes of earning large profits from a rising enterprise. Nestle succeeded in turning Beringer into an industry leader, but others, such as Coca-Cola, failed and deserted their effort. Although the wine industry established strong footholds in Oregon and Washington, the state of California, with over nine-hundred wineries, remained the leading wine-producing state in the nation, accounting for 90 percent (444 million gallons) of all U.S. wine production at the end of the twentieth century. The industry in California organized itself into the Wine Institute, while wineries across the nation are represented by another trade association, the Association of American Vintners.

The trend toward superior table wines meant that during the 1980s and 1990s America saw a rise in small premium wineries that produced wines scoring higher than French wines in international competitions. American wine makers, moreover, no longer copied European wines; instead, they developed exceptional qualities of their own. Despite the blossoming of the American wine industry during the last quarter of the twentieth century, wine consumption failed to soar. This was partly attributable to the new temperance movement of the 1980s, which focused on drunk driving, alcohol-related birth defects, and alcohol advertising abuses. But another reason for sagging consumption rates was that Americans ceased drinking generous amounts of cheap wines and were drinking less, but more expensive, premium wines. Some wine producers, however, did experience a boom in another wine product during the 1980s when the wine cooler enjoyed a brief vogue. In the 1990s, scientific reports linking moderate wine consumption to good health bolstered a rising popularity for wine in America.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barr, Andrew. Drink: A Social History of America. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1999.

Lukacs, Paul. American Vintage: The Rise of American Wine. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

Pinney, Thomas. A History of Wine in America from the Beginnings to Prohibition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.

Wine Institute: The Voice for California Wine. Available at http://www.wineinstitute.org.

Pamela E. Pennock

See also Spirits Industry .