History ... wine's social impact through time ...

Fossil vines, 60-million-years-old, are the earliest scientific evidence of grapes. The earliest written account of viniculture is in the Old Testament of the Bible which tells us that Noah planted a vineyard and made wine. As cultivated fermentable crops, honey and grain are older than grapes, although neither mead nor beer has had anywhere near the social impact of wine over recorded time. Wine and history have greatly influenced one another.

MIDDLE EASTERN ORIGINS
An ancient Persian fable credits a lady of the court with the discovery of wine. This Princess, having lost favor with the King, attempted to poison herself by eating some table grapes that had spoiled in a jar. She became intoxicated and giddy and fell asleep. When she awoke, she found the stresses that had made her life intolerable had dispersed. Returning to the source of her relief, her subsequent conduct changed so remarkably that she regained the King's favor. He shared his daughter's discovery with his court and ...

Certainly wine, as a natural phase of grape spoilage, was "discovered" by accident and is not an invention of man. It is established that grape cultivation and wine drinking had started by about 4000 BC and possibly as early as 6000 BC. The first developments were around the Caspian Sea and in Mesopotamia, near present-day Iran. Texts from tombs in ancient Egypt prove that wine was in use there around 2700 to 2500 BC. Priests and royalty were using wine, while beer was drunk by the workers. The Egyptians developed the first arbors and pruning methods. Archeological excavations have uncovered many sites with sunken jars, so the effects of temperature on stored wine were probably known.

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology has a web site covering the Origins and Ancient History of Wine with several very interesting and user-friendly articles about the discovery and science of wine's social origin and development.

GRECO-ROMAN CONTRIBUTIONS
Wine came to Europe with the spread of the Greek civilization around 1600 BC. Homer's Odyssey and Iliad both contain excellent and detailed descriptions of wine. Wine was an important article of Greek commerce and Greek doctors, including Hippocrates, were among the first to prescribe it. The Greeks also learned to add herbs and spices to mask spoilage.

The foundation and strength of viniculture in Western Europe are primarily due, however, to the influence of the Romans. Starting about 1000 BC, the Romans made major contributions in classifying grape varieties and colors, observing and charting ripening characteristics, identifying diseases and recognizing soil-type preferences. They became skilled at pruning and increasing yields through irrigation and fertilization techniques.

The Romans also developed wooden cooperage, a great advance for wine storage which had previously been done in skins or jars. They may also have been the first to use glass bottles, as glassblowing became more common during this era.

ECONOMICS, POLITICS, AND RELIGION
By the first century AD, wine was being exported from the Empire (Italy) to Spain, Germany, England and Gaul (France). It wasn't long before these regions began developing their own vineyards and the Roman Emperor forbid the import of French wines to eliminate their competition with the local wines. Over the next few centuries, France would become dominant on the world wine market. Monastic wineries were responsible for establishing vineyards in Burgundy, Champagne and the Rhine Valley. Sacramental usage preserved wine industry methods and traditions through the dark ages.

By 1152, during the reign of Henry II, Britain had become the principal customer of Bordeaux. The end of the Hundred Years War in 1453 left the city of Calais as the only French territory still under British control and trade between England and France nearly cut off. So the English "discovered" and developed a great love of Port.

Exploration, conquest and settlement brought wine to Mexico, Argentina and South Africa in the 1500s and 1600s. Although there were many attempts during this period to plant European wine vines along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of North America and in the Mississippi River basin valleys, none were successful. Each vineyard planted would die off within two or three seasons. No one apparently sought to determine why, even though little difficulty was encountered in Mexico or California vineyards. In the late 1800s, one answer to this mystery would ultimately prove fatal for nearly all the vineyards of Europe.

WINE MISSION FOR CALIFORNIA
Hernando Cortez, as Governor of Mexico in 1525, ordered the planting of grapes. The success was such that the King of Spain forbid new plantings or vineyard replacements in Mexico after 1595, fearing his colony would become self-sufficient in wine. This edict was enforced for 150 years, effectively preventing a commercial wine industry from forming.

As in Europe, however, vineyards survived under the auspices of the church and the care of the missions. In 1769, Franciscan missionary Father Junipero Serra planted the first California vineyard at Mission San Diego. Father Serra continued to establish eight more missions and vineyards until his death in 1784 and has been called the "Father of California Wine". The variety he planted, presumably descended from the original Mexican plantings, became known as the Mission grape and dominated California wine production until about 1880.

California's first documented imported European wine vines were planted in Los Angeles in 1833 by Jean-Louis Vignes. In the 1850s and '60s, the colorful Agoston Harazsthy, a Hungarian soldier, merchant and promoter, made several trips to import cuttings from 165 of the greatest European vineyards to California. Some of this endeavor was at his personal expense and some through grants from the state. Overall, he introduced about 300 different grape varieties, although some were lost prior to testing, due to difficulties in preserving and handling.

Considered the Founder of the California Wine Industry, Harazsthy contributed his enthusiasm and optimism for the future of wine, along with considerable personal effort and risk. He founded Buena Vista winery and promoted vine planting over much of Northern California. He dug extensive caves for cellaring, promoted hillside planting, fostered the idea of non-irrigated vineyards and suggested Redwood for casks when oak supplies ran low.

BLINDED WINE WITH SCIENCE
For centuries wine was produced and enjoyed with little thought for and no true understanding of its underlying science, wine evolved through "spontaneous generation," as far as anyone knew. French chemist Louis Pasteur, among many discoveries relating to his germ theory of diseases, first proposed and proved, in 1857, that wine is made by microscopic organisms, yeasts. This led to the discovery and development of different yeast types and properties and ultimately to better hygiene, less spoilage, and greater efficiency in wine production.

In 1860, Dr. Jules Guyot published the first of three treatises describing regional traditional vinicultural and viticultural practices as well as his own observations and arguments on the economy of grape growing. Before these documents, viniculture was a practice that had been apprenticed from generation to generation for over 5000 years, without written records or formal instruction.

YANKEE VINE-KILLER BUG
In 1863, species of native American grapes were taken to Botanical Gardens in England. These cuttings carried a species of root louse called phylloxera vastatrix which attacks and feeds on the vine roots and leaves. Phylloxera is indigenous to the Mississippi River Valley and was unknown outside North America at the time. Powdery mildew, a fungal disease, also indigenous to North America, had previously migrated to Europe and caused problems in some areas. No one, however, had any idea of the wide-reaching destructive potential of Phylloxera.

Native American varieties developed resistance to phylloxera by evolving a thick and tough root bark, so that they were relatively immune to damage. The vinifera vines had no such evolutionary protection and phylloxera ate away at their roots, causing them to rot and the plant to die and driving the pests to seek other nearby live hosts, spreading inexorably through entire vineyards and on to others.

By 1865, phylloxera had spread to vines in Provence. Over the next 20 years, it inhabited and decimated nearly all the vineyards of Europe. Many methods were attempted to eradicate phylloxera: flooding, where possible, and injecting the soil with carbon bisulfide, had some success in checking the louse, but were costly and the pests came back as soon as the treatments stopped.

Finally Thomas Munson, a horticulturist from Dennison, Texas, realized that native American vines were resistant and suggested grafting the vinifera vines onto riparia hybrid rootsocks. So, there began a long, laborious process of grafting every wine vine in Europe over to American rootstocks. It was only in this manner that the European wine industry could be retrieved from extinction. Downy mildew, another fungal disease in American grapevines, unfortunately probably migrated to Europe on some of the rootstocks imported for grafting. One tragic consequence of the Phylloxera devastation is that many of the native species indigenous to Europe, since they were of negligible commercial value, were not perpetuated by grafting and became extinct.

There was some debate generated by this replanting that the quality declined in "post-phylloxera" wines. Whether this was indeed the case and whether this was due to the rootstocks themselves or to the relatively sudden and nearly universal youth of the vines, or to changes in vinification techniques, or to some other concurrent factor or variable, is unknown. Undoubtedly, it will remain a matter of theory and opinion and provide animated conversation at wine tastings, but ultimately never be proven.

The blight resulted in shortages of wine for many years, so that fraud and adulteration became problems, eventually leading French wine growers to the form the system of Appellation Controlée, which has become the model for all wine producing countries to both protect wine trade reputations and authenticate products for consumers.

During the period when the Europeans were contending with phylloxera, the American wine industry was ironically flourishing. By 1900, America had a fully developed and proud commercial wine producing business. Leading brands from California, New York, Ohio, Missouri and New Jersey were appearing on many of the best restaurant wine lists alongside French, German and Italian listings. Barrels of California wine were being regularly exported to Australia, Canada, Central America, England, Germany, Mexico and the Orient.

VINE-KILLER POLITICS
The destruction of the American wine industry would come not from an entomological pest, but from a political one. While it took a hundred years instead of 20 to complete its course, the results were even more devastating. It didn't spread from vineyard to vineyard, but from town to county to state to the entire nation.

Alcohol abuse and alcoholism and their related problems were much more widespread and affected a radically larger share of America's population in the early and mid-1800s than they do at present day. Excessive use, rather than moderate use, was the norm in an era of fewer entertainments and diversions.

The first Prohibition law went on the books in Indiana in 1816, forbidding the sale of any alcohol on Sunday (still enforced to this day). By the 1840s, towns and counties in Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York and Ohio had gone legally "dry". In 1851, Maine enacted the first statewide law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of liquor and, by 1855, thirteen of the thirty-one United States had followed suit.

The Industrial Revolution led from local to large-scale brewing and mass marketing, with intense competition. A proliferation of saloons drove owners to seek side profits by pursuing illegal and unsavory vices such as gambling and prostitution. As another beverage containing alcohol, wine began to suffer the successful excesses of beer.

In 1880, Kansas became the first entirely "dry" state, followed by Iowa, Georgia, Oklahoma, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia. Although the laws allowed winemaking to continue for sale elsewhere, few wineries in these states could compete without selling their wines locally. Most closed their doors and abandoned their vineyards.

The Drys went so far as to have any mention of wine expunged from school and college texts, including Greek and Roman classic literature. Medicinal wines were dropped from the United States Pharmacopoeia. They even tried to prove that praises for wine in the Bible were actually referring to unfermented grape juice. Thirty-three states had gone dry at the outbreak of World War I. While the Doughboys were fighting in Europe, Wartime Prohibition was enacted in 1919.

Over President Wilson's veto, Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, known as the Volstead National Prohibition Act, named after Minnesota Republican Andrew Volstead, teetotaller and primary proponent. After midnight on January 16, 1920, the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors," as well as the exporting or importing of same was forbidden and became a Federal crime.

Through a provision that made penalites not applicable¹ to "a person manufacturing noninoxicating cider and fruit juice exclusively for use in his home," thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens became home winemaking hobbyists and quasi-bootleggers. This poorly-constructed clause eliminated consequence without strictly legalizing either home brewing or winemaking, yet the obvious difficulty of intepreting and applying its intent led to new pasttimes for many households.

Explosive demand for fresh grapes and a shortage of refrigerated railroad cars in which to ship them caused prices to skyrocket. Growers began replanting their vineyards from fine wine varieties over to table or juice grape varieties that shipped better. Planted acreage nearly doubled from 1919 to 1926. Vineyard land prices climbed from $200 an acre in 1918 to $2,500 an acre in 1923. Prosperity for the growers lasted barely five years. In 1925, the railroads finally had enough cars, too much fruit was shipped and it rotted on the Eastern docks. In 1926, vineyard land fell back to $250 per acre. The massive plantings produced a constant surplus of California grapes that persisted until 1971.

By the time of National Repeal, effective December 5, 1933, the industry was in ruins. Although some wineries managed to survive by obtaining permits to make wines used for medicinal, sacramental and non-beverage additive purposes, production dropped 94% from 1919 to 1925.

REPEAL WITHOUT RECOVERY
Even after Repeal, several states stayed dry: Kansas until 1948, Oklahoma until 1957, and Mississippi until 1966. Seventeen states chose to obliterate free-market capitalism by establishing monopoly liquor stores with limited selections and plain-as-dirt merchandising that discourages respectable housewives from shopping.

There remain local prohibitions that are arbitrary, inconsistent and niggling, with such manifest foolishness as streets lined door-to-door on one side with taverns and "package stores" and nary a one on the opposite side where the dry boundary runs down the middle of the roadway. Today 10 percent of the nation's area and 6 percent of the population remain dry.

Anticipating Repeal, speculators and quick-buck artists soon flooded the legal market with quickly and poorly made wine. Dilettantes published books and articles warning Americans about rigid rules that must be followed to serve the proper wine with the proper food from the proper glass at the proper temperature. Faced with bad-tasting products with which to risk committing social blunders and while remaining uncertain about the social acceptance of any alcohol, most Americans stayed away. Hard drinkers stuck to hard liquor. For decades, moderate wine drinking in a social context survived almost exclusively in households that made their own.

The only group of wines that sold well following Repeal were the fortified dessert wines. Taxed at the lower rate of wine as opposed to distilled spirits, but with 20 percent alcohol, this group made the cheapest intoxicant available for derelicts and winos. Before 1920, there were more than 2,500 commercial wineries in the United States. Less than 100 survived as winemaking operations to 1933. By 1960, that number had grown to only 271. California had 713 bonded wineries before Prohibition; it took more than half a century, until 1986, before that many were again operating.

Before 1920, table wines accounted for 3 of every 4 gallons shipped. After 1933, fortified wines were 3 of every 4 gallons shipped. It wasn't until 1968 that table wines sales finally overtook fortified wines, regaining the status of most popular wine category.

Prohibition left a legacy of distorting the role of alcohol in American life, ruining a fledgling world-class wine industry, weakening the U.S. Constitution, and boosting the success and profitability of Organized Crime (the price of whiskey rose over 500% during the 1920s). The maze of confusing and conflicting laws that currently vary widely between states impedes commerce, sustains distribution monopolies, casts aspersions of greed on tax coffers, and mocks the American sense of fair competition.

More police officers were killed during the decade of the 1920s than in any decade in history. The "Grand Experiment" implanted moral ambiguity and disrespect for authority in an entire generation of Americans, while it deprived them of potential social and health benefits, and brought the character and term "wino" into the streets and the lexicon.

The one positive remainder is the lingering Congressional hesitance to pass Constitutional Amendments, especially regarding restrictions on individual liberty and personal moral choice. We can only hope for the future that our representatives don't commit such folly when powerful special interests clash with the shared individual freedoms that make up the public interest.

The forces of prohibition are not dead yet. They are more insidious, combining moralist and monopolist factions, pursuing an agenda of obstructionist legislation, that includes preventing or encumbering direct sales of wine to consumers (see Free the Grapes and Ship My Wine), preventing health information from being printed on wine labels and spreading disinformation about potential benefits and studies related to wine and health.

WORK IN PROGRESS
In spite of the political workings, table wine has grown in popularity in America. U.S. per-capita consumption of wine still lags far behind most countries of the Western Hemisphere. Although America wine-consuming growth is on pace to become the number one wine consuming nation within this decade, more than 85% of that consumption is accomplished by less than 8% of the total population.

Research in the past thirty years has led to developments in both agriculture and technology that have greatly improved overall wine quality. The quality and stature of California and American wine has never been better and worldwide demand continues to grow. The attractions of the "gentleman farming" lifestyle and the increasing demand have driven the industry to swell to a total of 4,383 bonded US wineries in 2006.

In America's Bicentennial Year of 1976, the world of wine was shocked when two Napa Valley wines (Stag's Leap 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon and Chateau Montelena 1975 Chardonnay) bested the top French wine counterparts in Paris, at a blind tasting judged entirely by Frenchmen, all experts in wine! In the first years of the New Millennium, it is now only surprising when French wines win at similar events.