The wine industry has changed a great deal in my lifetime. I did not become interested in fine wine until the late 1970’s and was quite unaware of the profound changes that had recently taken place in the wine business, nor of the great impending changes. I recently acquired a copy of a famous 1955 book – American Wines and Wine-Making – by Philip M. Wagner, and it provides a glimpse into the wine scene of 70 years ago. In reading it, one can get a sense of where the wine world was at that time, and how dramatically it has changed.
Philip M. Wagner was born in 1904 in Connecticut and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan where his father was a professor at the University of Michigan. His parents drank wine at meals and he developed a taste for finer wines. Philip launched into a career as a journalist and joined the Baltimore Sun 1930. The country was well entrenched in the Great Depression and Prohibition at that time. This led him to home winemaking and he found precious few resources to guide him. After studying French winemaking texts, he wrote his first book on wine to assist fellow home winemakers. American Wines and How to Make Them was published in 1933 and became an informal bible for like-minded vintners.
With the end of Prohibition, the few producing California wineries had a use for all their grapes and there were none to ship east. Philip, who did not like the taste of vitis labrusca wines, sought out cuttings of hybrid wines that had been bred in France following the devastation of phylloxera in French vineyards. He purchased vines from France and ultimately started his own nursery to supply others interested vintners. He also established a small winery in 1945 – Boordy Vineyard – which became quite popular in the Baltimore-Washington area.
The heart of his book is indeed about winemaking. He covers winery setup, equipment needs, and how to make white, red and sparkling wine. He instructs the novice winemaker in easily understandable prose. He covers topics like stuck fermentations, racking, fining, filtering and bottling. While basic, his instructions proved to be sound and home winemakers sought his advice and counsel.
Mr. Wagner wrote about his personal evolution: “A taste for wine led me into wine-making; and wine-making led me inexorably into grape-growing and especially the fun of experimenting with the new wine grapes under American conditions. Work with grapes and wine has for me been the ideal companion-vocation to newspaper work, since the contrast is so complete.”
The book offers an interesting overview of the US wine industry in the 1950’s. Consider the state of the wine world in the US in 1955. Eisenhower was president. The country was only a decade removed from World War II, two years from the Korean War, and deep in the throes of the Cold War. The wine industry was still recovering from Prohibition. Although wine sales had become legal in 1933, the country endured the Great Depression followed by the war years and the industry was just beginning to re-establish itself by the 1950’s.
In 1955, the average income was $4,137; the average house sold for around $9,100 and the mortgage interest rates were just under five percent. Gasoline was 23 cents a gallon, bread was 18 cents a loaf and a beef pot roast cost 43 cents a pound. Inflation from 1955 until today is a multiplier of 11.5. That would make an inflation-adjusted average house $105,000 and a gallon of gas $2.65. On the other hand, a 21 inch black and white TV sold for $170 in 1955. A 24-inch color TV today sells for the 1955 equivalent of $6.52.
Wine was a relative bargain. You could get French Bordeaux (red or white) for 99¢, a full quart of Italian Chianti for 89¢, or Chilean “Riesling or Burgundy” for 79¢ – a $9 price in today’s currency. California wine production was about 110 million gallons of wine compared to about 600 million gallons today. Seventy percent of California wine in 1955, however, was classified as dessert wine, sold as “Sherry” and “Port” and other names under a profusion of brands.
When Wagner surveyed the state of the US wine industry, he mentioned the Finger Lakes and Chautauqua regions of New York, northern Ohio along the Lake Erie shore as significant wine producing areas. He mentions several other eastern and central states including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas.
Wagner devotes special attention to California and its notable growing areas. Napa and Sonoma top the list. Also mentioned are Alameda County and the Livermore Valley, the Santa Clara Valley and Santa Cruz Mountains. While he notes the production of fortified wines in the eastern reaches of the Los Angeles basin, there is no mention of Santa Barbara County, Monterey County, or any of the now noted subregions within. There is also no mention of Oregon or Washington since none of the now 2,000+ wineries in those state existed in 1955.
Philip Wagner was an astute observer of the US wine scene at the time. Some of his comments highlight the differences and similarities between his time and ours:
“Its effect on the affairs of California’s vineyardists was one of the most grotesque and ridiculous chapters in the whole farcical story. Prohibition proved merely to be a ban on superior wines. Congress had left a loophole which allowed the making of wines at home. So instead of selling their grapes to the wineries, many of the growers simply loaded them into refrigerator cars and shipped them east, especially to the big cities with large foreign-born populations.”
“After prohibition, the name [Paul Masson] and the mountain vineyard were taken over by a quasi-legendary young man, Martin Ray, who extended the plantings of superior varieties and who proceeded to make a series of exceptionally good (and expensive) table wines, of which the Gamay stood out as a revelation of California’s possibilities.”
“Inglenook is one of the best of all the California producers and is especially admired for its Cabernet and its highly individual and rather light-colored Pinot Noir. It has plantings of other superior red-wine varieties, such as Gamay and the Italian grape Charbono.”
“A Zinfandel from Stockton or Lodi lacks color and is “hot” and flat-tasting. A Zinfandel from Napa or Sonoma is fruity and lively and sometimes very nearly ‘elegant’ if well matured.”
“This [Charles Krug Winery] is now the property of the Mondavi family, father and sons, a formidable combination. Both winery and vineyards have been much refurbished. Plantings of the best ‘varietals’ are being increased year by year. The Mondavis are concentrating on superior white wines, such as Traminer, Riesling, and Pinot Blanc, and are seeking to overcome the characteristic heaviness of most California white wine….”
“Above everything, remember that the amateur winemaker is in constant and deadly danger of being a bore, or boor. There are two reasons for this. The first is that, being a person who appreciates wine, while living in a culture that is indifferent if not downright hostile to it, he passes all too easily into a mood of righteous indignation or missionary zeal.”
Wagner adds an appendix with his notes on California wine grapes available to home winemakers. Here are a few – rated on a scale of 0 to 100 for wine quality:
Alicante Bouschet (40). Widely planted, producing a coarse wine, deeply colored, of ordinary quality, which has become almost a drug on the market. It dominates shipments to the Eastern markets. Though its intense color offers certain advantages, it should be avoided unless there is nothing better.
Cabernet Sauvignon (98). Best of the California red-wine grapes so far as quality is concerned, being also the dominant French Bordeaux grape. A moderate producer, especially well suited to the Napa and Sonoma Valleys.
Grignolino (79). Another variety from the Italian Piedmont producing a highly characteristic wine of an orange-pink tint, with a special aroma and an exceptionally high tannin content.
Burger (61). One of the most widely grown varieties. It is presumed to be of German origin, though its wine is not at all like the German wines. A heavy producer. Its wine, though agreeable when made from grapes that are not too ripe, is nondescript.
Chardonnay (92). This, the Burgundy white-wine grape, produces some of the best of the California white wine, when picked promptly. It is a moderate producer, well adapted only to the cooler areas. Little of it is planted.
Green Hungarian (51). Of unknown origin and widely planted in California. Culturally, it is a good variety, but its wine is nondescript.
Wagner encapsulated his feelings about wine and winemaking by reference to Cato the Elder, a Roman born in 243 BC.
“He described grape varieties that still figure largely in the Mediterranean viticulture. His vineyard practices are still being followed in their essentials. It is at once disconcerting and reassuring to go back to the ancient text: disconcerting to realize how little of novelty there really is in winegrowing, reassuring to find oneself so closely involved in a continuing tradition.”